


Weak Queen

by kilozombie



Series: Queen Alphys [2]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Multi, Post-Neutral Route - Near Genocide Ending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-09
Updated: 2016-04-26
Packaged: 2018-05-25 18:12:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 32,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6205483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kilozombie/pseuds/kilozombie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Underground exists in a dead timeline- cut off from the rest of the universe. It isn't supposed to exist, and yet it survives. Alphys, Queen of two years' time, has struck down the ninth human, putting the Monsters one step closer to freedom. Not long after, the tenth human arrives, an enigma with a false name, and over the course of a week, freedom slips further and further away...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Day One (...and the day was won)

**Author's Note:**

> It's probably best to read the previous fic, Just Another Ending, before this one. It is probably not what you're expecting.

She had a swimming pool but it wasn’t deep enough. It made her think, though. Wonder if New New Home could fit a swimming pool. Back then she was busy finishing up New New Home with Sans, because that was where she wanted to be, anywhere but here, anywhere but here. If she kept thinking about New New Home she wouldn’t be here anymore, she could stop being here, flopped on her face, laid limp in a swimming pool that was a pool of a human’s insides spilling out like confetti, and still clutching the spear that she’d made in New New Home, and she just wanted to go home. She needed to be somewhere else.

No, she was there. Couldn’t deny it. She was laid there while people screamed and shouted. She heard MK’s voice in the distance, and it was great, and her terrified, doldrum expression lifted from the ground. Her chin was stained red. I wonder if MK would want a swimming pool. This is how I used to deal with my problems. Thinking about somewhere else. Anywhere else.

Alphys had to be somewhere else, but she had spent two years as queen, and stopped being able to leave that mindset, that space. She was wearing the robe, and it was stained red. She was wearing the crown, or at least she had been, until it had fallen onto the ground kicking up blood. She was wearing her glasses, except she wasn't, because they had fallen, too, cracked and shattered, scattering glass against the ground.

Alphys realized that she was crying. She couldn’t remember why.

I am a killer. I did this. I did this. I built a nice swimming pool out of that girl’s entrails.

The crowd had formed a semicircle around her, lying on the ground, fallen down after she won with no effort. To her right was the human girl who looked very much alive. To her left was Sans, whose smile wanted so badly to rip itself off his face. He was clutching a glass container like a cylinder and scrambling toward the human, eyebrows furrowed. His left eye was blue, again, like it rarely was, when he was trying to conjure something with magic. But he had no power, he was wracked with franticness he was terrible at accepting, and he got his shoes wet as he stampeded through the aftermath and scooped up the helpless, bounding, fading soul into its new transparent home. He closed it with a metal top and then took a sigh, but it was only a sigh because he was terrified. Limply he dropped the container, just lightly enough so it would not break, and then Alphys saw him limp slowly toward her and go limp as he collapsed on her back, desperately wrapping both arms around her midsection. Hugging for life. Hugging for the sake of keeping hold.

Somebody in the crowd shouted, on impulse, “You killed her! Y-You’re a killer, oh my God!” It was the Nice Cream Man, who did not know that six years later he would be angry at her for the exact opposite thing. He was unlucky because he had arrived to see only her attacks and not the girl’s threats. 

Weakly, Sans turned around to murmur something in retort, but the angry MK stomped the ground, his eyes welling with tears, and said, “She saved everyone, s-she was saving us! Didn’t you see her?!” The skeleton swung back to keep his head closer to Alphys, who remained like a ragdoll, splayed across the floor, hoping it would all go away.

Not that it would go away, but that she could get away. Just a few inches further.

Out of here. Out of this room, out of the whole mountain.

The cavern room that was miles high blurred and shifted, and her breathing was heavy, and she closed her eyes like she was going to sleep, but sleep didn’t come because she was shaking herself awake, guilty and scared, and so awake, and so awake. Around her the hundred-strong mob of Monsters swirled harder, keeping themselves from yelling and screaming yet a quip came out every once in awhile, a comment, a cheer. She was lying still and the world was going slow motion, and Sans’ weight was too much to lift.

Screams and shouts and,

Then his voice was quiet in her ear.

“hey.”

“it’s gonna be okay, al.”

“hey, a-al… it’s gonna be okay.”

“al, i’m here…”

“we’re here. we’re both right here.”

He, of course, did not say anything about the girl on the ground, who had made a swimming pool for Alphys to slam into, and did not say anything about the anxious Underground behind them, yelling and speculating and scheming. In fact, with the sound of his voice, which was the opposite of comforting because it was pained, she was taken somewhere else, if only for a moment.

She floated up like a half-inflated helium balloon, lifting dead and limp, her front side stained a dark, dry crimson as she swam up and up, above New New Home and the crowd, above the pool which had nearly stopped growing and spreading across the floor, above the trident in hand which she assumed could easily end the world. She ascended until she was through the entrance to the cavern on the ceiling, shining bright noon’s light into the chamber at a hundred different angles and in a hundred different places through the rocks.

Almost out of here. Almost gone.

I can escape.

Then Alphys realized she was going nowhere at all, and all she was doing was shaking gently against Sans’ grip, who was crying now, crying because she was crying and because he hadn’t cried in two years. Slowly he realized she was trying to escape his grip, settling in the puddle of blood, and he released his arms, crawling to her left side opposite the human and struggling to stand. He wanted to say, it’s OK. Everyone knows you did the right thing. But even he was unsure.

She floated up like a sponge in a vat of water or a submarine releasing ballast, broken and cracked, and she began to rise on her hands and knees and then in an upright, short posture, that looked much taller against the flat lighting of the sun above. If the human had died any closer to the flowers of the throne room, instead of on the flat stone beforehand, the petals would turn from gold to bronze. But the plants were left untainted. She stood, and stood, and stood, until she was completely straight up, everything below her chin dripping red as she struggled to dry herself off. Terrifyingly short in comparison to the crowd. When she turned around they would be staring at her like a pathetic half-height aberration, a Monster named Alphys, who had never been queen, and could never be queen.

She stared at Sans. Her eyes were not hidden by the lenses of her glasses anymore, left bare, wet with tears and trying to close but failing. His, like usual, kept their cool, save for the noiseless sobbing which was impossible to see with anything but a trained gaze. It was false assurance, that look in his eyes, and she pretended it wasn’t false, and that was enough to turn around and start talking as soon as she showed her face.

“I… I-I had to,” said Alphys. “I’ve said, I-I’ve said a lot… I s-said before, I’ve… said… t-that this would have to happen, t-that even if a human was nice, we’d have to… g-give them the ultimatum.”

She realized she was holding the trident still, and dropped it. With an enormous ‘CLANG’ it hit the rock below and bounced like it was hollow. It took ten seconds for the echo to stop humming, and she paused for the entire duration, not bothering to dry her eyes.

Then, she resumed, “I know you a-all, uh… I-I know y-you knew her. I k-know everyone liked her. I h-had to. I had to. O-Or else she would’ve j-just… left… a-and, I mean… J-Jesus, it… i-it wouldn’t have made a difference, i-if she left, r-right? W-When people leave, w-we never hear from them again… right? I-It’s… the same as dying, o-or…”

Her breathing was heavy. The Monsters were blurry and amorphous. Her claws were sticky against the ground, and weren’t more than a meter from the top of her head. Whispers erupted from person to person. MK was the first to nod in agreement, in solemn agreement, but mainly out of love for his sister; the rest of the crowd was unsure and still panicked from the short but frantic conflict. Sans, as he had resigned himself to do as her assistant, started to retrieve a roller bed from New New Home which was built for Monsters of any shape and size. The human was a lifeless husk, and her soul rolled in its glass cage until it gently collided with a wall, painted red and gently shaking with the last life that remained inside, which would continue to remain in its nearly dead state for year after year.

“S-She didn’t deserve this,” came a voice, which belonged to a Monster which very much resembled a blue bunny, twice the height of Alphys. “She didn’t… she wasn’t like the others. Frisk was bad, but that girl was kind. This is unbelievable, this is HORRIBLE! You’d kill an innocent human for wanting to leave, yet you didn’t even stop Frisk? You didn’t stop Frisk when you had the chance, and you--”

Alphys cut the Nice Cream Man off. “But… b-but we need this.” She had started to calm down, yet her voice was still meek. “We need human souls if we want to leave.”

Sans took the human on a bed whose sheets became stained, and Alphys kept upright like a pole in a storm.

“...I’m s-sorry.”

She was sinking back into the swimming pool but it wasn’t deep enough. She closed her eyes and simply stood in front of the Monsters who all watched with a mix of disgust and terror, and she was the terror, and the figure in front of them whose name was Alphys looked and moved and apologized like a human covered in dust would, like they had seen humans do. The figure in front of them was slumped and limp like Asgore was after every occasion. But she was not supposed to be like Asgore. They had been assured that she was nothing like Asgore, that she was only taking a few of his ideas like the four sentences that kept her as their friend to the very end, but in that moment that assurance seemed wrong. She was showing the same signs. Showing the same face.

“I’m sorry,” Alphys said again, louder this time, staring at the stone below. “I’m sorry. I-I’m sorry. She didn’t deserve this but it h-had to happen.” Then, growing slackjawed and cloudy-eyed, she said, “I need to collect… my thoughts. Th-think about everything. If you, uh… if anyone needs to mourn, you can do it here. In the throne room. A-And New New Home is open like always. We’ll…” She looked over toward Sans, who had set the human by the front door of the clinic shack. “We’ll have… a proper funeral.” There. That was something Asgore had never done.

“A proper funeral?” asked the Nice Cream Man, incredulous. “We’ve never had funerals for humans! We hardly know what to do with them, even.”

Sans limped up behind, shadowing Alphys though they were the same size. “we know enough,” he murmured, looking down. “we still have an extra coffin.” He picked up the plastic cutlass from the rapidly drying bloodbath and carried it toward the girl, laying still, staring at the open ceiling with glass eyes still clinging to life.

Old Gerson was silent until he announced to the rest of them, “Perhaps we can do the preparations with the girl, so our Queen can take a rest.”

Alphys said, “I n-need… to collect my th-thoughts. On all of this. Gerson is right. Y-You all should head home, for now. I’m sorry.”

The crowd shuffled. She wanted to say she was sorry, again. She was sorry. She wanted to go back, she needed to go back. Please let me go back five minutes, go back ten minutes, ten hours. Just give me time to prepare. Give me all the time in the world, at the very least. Let me go back to before any of this happened and I could live easy without knowing I was just the byproduct of a cycle of reset-and-reset that would go on forever and in every direction that time can go. Let me go back to not knowing. Let me forget.

Let me forget that I live here.

Alphys thought about saying to the Nice Cream Man, “Me and Sans saved your life. You don’t get to yell at anyone, not when they’ve saved your life.” It felt like it would be a good thing to say. It might hurt to say, might hurt to hear, it might serve as just a way to distance herself from the crowd and even Sans, but it would be a good thing to say.

Keep it about everyone, not one person.

Being hostile makes me an enemy.

I can’t be their enemy.

I need to be their friend.

She must’ve mumbled out a few last words, given her best impression of dignity, and then dragged her reddened, miserable self away, with Sans immediately by her side, but she couldn’t quite remember.

He opened the door and she stumbled inside.

She spilled out onto a table and he told her, “this is crazy.”

We’re just kids.

We’re both just kids.

He said, “this is crazy, but it’s over, al. it’s over. breathe.”

Then Alphys could not breathe. She considered sprinting over and embracing him, begging for breath, coughing and choking, but she was still covered in the human’s little red swimming pool and her first destination was the shower in the back of the house. Behind her she left a trail of faint crimson footsteps up until the door swung open out of her control and she started to feel scalding water against the scales on her back.

Wash it off. Oh, God, get it off me.

Like little animals on my front side. She turned around and realized she was still wearing the robe and cloak, which were suddenly drenched. Didn’t care, really. The clothes were dirty, her entire soul felt like it was coated in a paint it could not scrape off, even as she ran her claws against the fabric and against her scales frantically. Her tail flopped as water burned its surface and nearly knocked down the curtain. She spasmed. She sighed. She sobbed half-silently and waited for everything to go away, but it never did, not for years and years until she left, and the pain and terror in that moment remained for a long, long time after her escape, too.

Outside, Sans was left with an enormous number of options, all of which he should probably explore, but as soon as Alphys’ shock and despair was hidden away into the bathroom, he realized the weight of what had hit him. She was terrified because she had done something she wasn’t capable of; Sans had gotten prepared, for the first time, to meet a human which would not have to die. It wasn’t until the girl had announced that she was prepared to fight that he started to grow weak. It almost felt like he should be angry at Alphys for striking back, but he had seen the determination in the human’s expression, and his weak tears were accepting and understanding, as if by miracle. He was quicker even than Alphys to admit that it was necessary, a necessary evil that she was greater than him to have embraced. Then, once she was gone, Sans was left with only the emptiness of potential that had been stifled for no reason and with no blame.

Already he was ‘starting to get over it’. It hadn’t been six hours, it hadn’t been anywhere near six hours. And yet, Sans thought, it’s time for me to get over it. This was a habit he had been perpetuating for as long as he could remember, and even with Alphys’ help, her encouragement to grieve and weep as he had always struggled to do, Sans still wanted, needed, pleaded to get over the human’s death, even as the blood was still wet and the crowd outside was only beginning to clear.

Alphys stepped out of the bathroom having messily dried herself with a towel which she left on the floor. She looked like she had shrunk.

Sans was silent as he approached. His grin was paired with his non expectant, assuring eyes, which looked almost as tired as she felt. Normally she would sputter something else, and sob something out that would define what she was feeling, but Alphys had run out of tears and simply limped over, embracing in a hug of ten thousand pounds that he reciprocated, closing his eyes with her warmth.

“you’re soaked,” he said. “i guess that means we don’t have to wash the clothes.”

Even though Sans could not see it, he knew that Alphys made another invisible smile.

“M-Maybe not,” she replied. “But I’m gonna. Can’t get enough off.”

“never can, with that thing.”

Alphys walked around the perimeter of the main room, dropping the blinds on the windows as quickly as she could. She didn’t dare look out, but she imagined a mob, hundreds strong, prepared to throw rocks at the glass and scream and shout in protest for their fallen human, who still sat in the medical shack, unattended, along with her soul. Alphys then made her way to the dining table, which could fit twenty people, and sat in the particularly uncomfortable chair that she always did. She thought sitting down would help, but she had fallen down for two solid minutes and wasn’t, in fact, in any need of rest. However, it gave her room to breathe. She looked like what she used to, in the chair- messy, missing her glasses, young, tiny.

Sans poured a mug full of hot water and planted a golden flower teabag into it. He assumed this was the best, and most efficient, method of making tea. He made a second for himself and sat them down so that him and Alphys could sit face to face.

“Th-Thanks,” she murmured, weakly.

“least i can do.”

Alphys shook the cup, waiting for the water to become murky. “I’ve… we’ve gotta make a speech. W-Write a speech. About everything, just to explain it all... I c-could get something done by tonight, i-if I started right now, a-and…”

Sans tilted his head, loosening his grin. “a speech? probably better to just talk to people personally, like you usually do.”

“Like WE usually d-do,” she murmured, correcting him. He often underplayed how much they both had a hand in keeping the Underground sane. “A-And I would, but… t-there’s just too many people. Not enough time.”

“you could have them tell each other. pass the word.” Quickly he was distancing himself from the topic, and the dead girl seemed miles away.

“Yeah… but it gets muddled, e-every time somebody spreads it. It’d be a big game of telephone. A-At least one person is gonna hear that Alphys… t-that I…” She struggled to find the words. No matter what she said, no matter how twisted and vile she spun it, it would be correct. 

And Sans noticed this, as he was always incredible at noticing the subtle ways in which she thought as she had become sensitive for him. He said, “al… you gave her a hundred chances to back off. she’s the one that attacked you, and even if she had succeeded, she would find out that killing you hadn’t solved anything, and she would’ve… you defended yourself.”

“D-Does that make it okay?!” she stammered. “J-Just because… just because I’m not t-the person who started it d-doesn’t mean it’s right.”

“no, but it was the best you could do. it was the best anyone could do, in that position.” He sighed. “the underground knows necessity. they’ve lived necessity for the past two years. they understand. they get it, they’ll get it.”

Alphys threw the mug up into her snout and downed half of the liquid. It tasted almost like nothing and burned her mouth, and she nearly gagged on the teabag before setting it back down nervously. “God, I can’t believe we’re talking about this like it didn’t just happen.” She glanced at a window. Out that window there was the evidence, the convicting, irrefutable evidence that she was what she had always feared and what she never, ever could be.

“is that a good or a bad thing?”

“I d-don’t know,” she said.

Sans drank his barely-saturated tea through his teeth and stared at the table. Then he sat down the mug softly, and leaned forward across the table until his thin hand was cradled around hers, resting on her own drink’s handle, and she stared at him. Her eyes were wetted with tears again, and on her face was a limp, powerless look of terror. And it didn’t help. And it didn’t help. He said, “i’m here, al. not gonna leave.” He said this because his greatest fear in life was still that she would leave. That one day there would be an earthquake and he would be with his brother and his king and the leader of the Royal Guard, and he would look at Alphys, and she would not remember. Of all the things he knew about her, he knew that she was afraid of that same thing just as much as he would. They laughed because most of the things they had in common as people were sad things.

Alphys’ crying stopped being silent, sudden and sharp, as that pit in her stomach grew and grew. She released the cup and just held his hand, her claws digging in, strong and weak and pained. She was shaking. She didn’t feel like a queen of anything, much less of the Underground, which seemed too immense to be controlled by anybody.

“Sans,” she said. “Is this what he went through? Is this wh-what he went through every time, w-without anyone to… anyone to help him? J-Jesus, and people hated that, they made fun of that, they… t-they called him a killer. Sans, do you remember that, uh… Burgerpants did th-this thing on Undernet about Asgore, a-and… oh, God, it was the funniest thing, it was the funniest thing…”

“yeah, i remember. parody isn’t really my kind of comedy,” said Sans. “little too insensitive, y’know?”

“I g-get that now,” she said. “But not then.”

“asgore used to have gaster, i guess. they were good friends. i think asgore liked having somebody to learn from, about science, and stuff, you know? lived for so long he was losing things he could still learn about.”

‘Except… Gaster doesn’t exist. Not here, n-not then. So he was alone.”

“eh. some things stayed after he disappeared, like… the core itself. stuff that doesn’t make sense to be there, but was there anyway. maybe asgore didn’t feel alone, somehow. like he knew there had been a person there.”

“I hope,” said Alphys. “Else he died alone, too.”

Sans sighed, and took a pause for a little while, changing the subject back. “they’re not mad at you, alright? nobody’s mad, they’re just… surprised. shocked. us included. the nice cream man just needs something or somebody to blame.”

“He… wants things to make sense.”

MK knocked on the front door by bumping his head against it loudly. Instantly, or what felt like instantly, Alphys came to the door, light as a feather and freezing cold, shaking, still crying. Immediately she hurried him in and his tail remained limp, lacking any energy. Sans was still sitting at the table.

“H-Hey, sis,” he said. “Uh, e-everyone’s starting to clean up. I think they’re gonna bury her in Waterfall somewhere, or maybe the Capitol, I-I dunno.”

Alphys sputtered, “Oh, I--” She wrapped her arms around him entirely, crouching down. He warmed up to the touch, but was a long way from doing fine. “Christ, MK, are… a-are you okay?! You shouldn’t… you didn’t need to s-see that, a-any of that…”

“Yeah,” he choked.

Sans stood up, his chair moving loudly, and walked over until he could come by Alphys’ side. On his way he caught a glimpse out the open doorway, and locked eyes with at least twenty Monsters, still trying to get a grasp on the situation, still cleaning the stone floor. “hey, kiddo,” he said to MK.

“Hey,” MK said back. He looked younger than usual. The spines on his back looked freshly sprouted, and his eyes were still wide open, as if constantly stricken by surprise. “S-So, I, uh… I w-went down to the Capitol and told Cinnamon and Loren a-and a couple more people what happened.”

“what’d you tell ‘em, exactly?”

MK turned to Alphys, who broke her grip slightly to look straight at him. “Well… t-the truth, that’s all.” He paused and realized it wasn’t a good enough answer. “That you gave her the options everyone already knows about, then she didn’t like ‘em, and tried to attack you. And you k-kept giving her chances, and then finally she fell down, a-and they were, y’know, they were sayin’ it was probably a good thing, that you didn’t get hurt.”

She held him tighter. He was crying but looked like was having trouble admitting it. “I’m sorry,” she sputtered out, for the hundredth time.

“D-Don’t be sorry, ‘sis,” said MK. “You were just doin’ what you’re good at.”

“No, I-I’m sorry you have to see any of this. You deserve better.”

“Uh-huh, I guess.”

Alphys broke from her kneel, an expression of great doubt and unsureness stricken across her face, and with her Sans rose, and the both of them stared out the open doorway which led so far away from safety and comfort. The three of them huddled up together amidst pain and looked very much like a family, if one that was much more intimate to the Monsters of the Underground than the other royal family was. That feeling of family was one that Flowey would crave for years and years more, watching from a distance, longing for a connection, longing for the feeling he had lost and which had been replaced with an emptiness that stole his voice and almost his mind.

“you ready to head out there, al?” asked Sans.

“M-Might as well,” Alphys replied.

The Nice Cream Man had, perhaps, lost the most after the massacre, even though the queen and her assistant had seen far more people die. He still had his enthusiasm and carefree desire to surprise and invent, yet the Monsters around him lacked and motivation to hear him out, so over the course of two years he began to develop a bit of cynicism, deeply ingrained but something he had trouble noticing. For the Nice Cream Man, the girl had been somebody willing to hear his inner excitement, if only for a moment, and to see her soul trapped in a glass case was jarring. He held it in his hands, staring slackjawed at the amorphous yet heartlike entity, which lazily bobbed around, seemingly gasping for breath. He was smart enough not to unlock it for fear of killing it, and yet its weight was so tempting. He could open it up and feel the girl’s power and her energy, her understanding, and then it would be lost.

“careful,” said Sans. “don’t drop it.” He approached first with his hands in his pockets, a look that was staring at the flowerbed, and with two in tow. Alphys was closest, and the claws on her hands tugged at her own robe, probing for an itch.

“I won’t,” said the Nice Cream Man.

Alphys murmured, “I-If you did, this whole thing would have been a waste.”

MK scurried off somewhere, at first sneaking away from the gentle grasp of his sister and then running, greeting numerous Monsters who were still floating between grief and shock even twenty minutes after the event. He didn’t stray far from the queen, but far enough that he could disconnect himself from his sadness again.

The Nice Cream Man faced Alphys and Sans, who were locked together, and began to speak quickly. “I’m sorry for yelling at you, Queen. It… well, it was just in the moment, you know? I didn’t think we’d have to end things like this, but… you probably did the right thing. I bet Frisk told her that she’d be perfectly safe fighting us with her little toy, but nobody aboveground has any idea what we cooked up in the Core.”

“If she knew, s-she wouldn’t have attacked.”

“Yeah.”

Alphys slumped over a bit, weakly. “She didn’t deserve this, like you said earlier. Nobody deserves anything like this, b-but sometimes that’s not what matters, and stuff just... happens.” She had rehearsed that much, or at least gone through it in her head, and like Sans she was starting to slip six hours into the future, six hours away, far away from the swimming pool that wasn’t deep enough and that she was drowning in.

“You know,” said the Nice Cream Man as he stared at the ground, “she bought all the Nice Cream I had in my store. Every single item. Wonder what happened to it all.”

“Magic food turns to dust when its owner dies,” said Alphys meekly, and they didn’t talk about Nice Cream for a long, long time afterward, because the tall blue-furred monster holding a soul was suddenly wracked with pain, and he stood there in front of the queen and her assistant frozen like a statue for at least twenty seconds. Afterward he limped over to the front of the house, his expression very moderate, and set the canister in front of the door where anyone and everyone could see it. Asgore hid his souls underground, to keep them safe from any Monster who should not have their hands on them, but Asgore ran a kingdom and all Alphys ran was an Underground of people who were, in the end, too exhausted to break laws or cause havoc.

MK, with coordination from Gerson and Grillby, began to drag one of the wooden coffins from the tarps in the back of the throne room, not far from the entrance of New New Home that was the medical shack, back toward the entrance. They were not aware whatsoever with the idea of human burial, and Alphys had never researched it in all of her studies. All they knew is that Asgore put the humans in the coffins as a respect, and so the trio plucked her lifeless body, her heavy and sand-filled form, flopping it uselessly into the coffin, but not before a streak of blood came from her wounds, landing on petals silently and knocking them off balance. The flowers were the most unnoticed victim; trampled and singed by Grillby, crushed under the coffin, colored like they were rust instead of gold. MK started crying as soon as the girl fell in and the otherwise lightweight Gerson threw the top on it with a furrowed brow and a frown that had, seemingly, done this too many times.

“W-What do we do with it now?” asked MK.

“I suppose we do what we said,” Gerson replied. “Upturn some dirt in Waterfall and put her under there, as she seemed to like the place. It’s only a body now, anyway. The part that matters has already found its resting place.” He glanced at the trapped soul, and then back. “You don’t need to come, kid. You’ve done enough.”

MK coughed. Yeah, he’d probably done enough. He had only known the human for hours at most, as he was with Sans and Grillby when they led her to Napstablook’s house, and was their guide through the short trek, but not long enough to get attached. It shouldn’t be long enough to get attached.

Yeah, he’d probably done enough, but it didn’t feel like enough, so MK volunteered to come along, and told Alphys that it might take a while.

“...Stay safe, OK?”

“It’s just Waterfall, ‘sis,” he said, and went, and Alphys was left sort of like she had been six hours after the worst moments of her life. Sans was there, and MK, in the distance, but they were the only ones who weren’t just blurry shapes, floating toward or away from her. They were the only ones she could talk to.

Yet, as Alphys had learned after two years, she needed to talk to them all.

The Monsters around her listened, and with her assistant as a backup the queen spoke, and spoke, and spoke. She was sputtering now, but she was talking, she was asking questions, she was walking around, joking without a grin, and slowly sliding into the comfortable waters of life again. She spoke as they were her people bundling up in a crowd, and though they had been lost and blown apart after the human’s death, she managed to convince the tall and the short of the Monsters all to agree.

They agreed, though not by her own command, that she had saved the Underground again, and given the humans a taste of their own medicine.

“S-Still,” she said, “Nobody should h-have to taste something so horrible.” It came out a little wrong and they didn’t understand what she said.

“Nobody should have to die. Nobody deserves t-that. It’s just luck, I-I guess, that she got it and not me. N-Not anything b-brave, just… lucky.”

“Luck’s fine,” said Burgerpants. “Luck is why a lot of us are here.”

Not alive, not dead, but here. That’s what he meant. Nobody had escaped the timeline and nobody ever would. Luck, and only luck, is what put them in the dead timeline, and everyone in the Underground seemed comfortable with that fact.

Alphys took the trident and the girl’s plastic cutlass and washed both underneath a sink for five minutes straight. Sans, noticing that the Nice Cream Man had started sitting against the front side of New New Home, looking like a mess and staring at the girl’s lazy soul, approached him calmly and sat by his side.

“it’s not going anywhere, you know.”

“Uh-huh. I know. Don’t need to keep telling me things that are obvious. I’m not gonna drop it or break it and it’s not going anywhere. I’m just… looking at it. Her.”

Sans leaned over so that his head was level with his. His pupils nearly completely disappeared, staring at the human trying to escape. The human trying so desperately, as if driven by a primal urge. He’d read a little on the subject, he read that humans always released their dead because they feared that living in such a state was hell, a never ending pain. A human soul was not supposed to live on its own for more than a few seconds. That was how it was, centuries ago, when their technology was limited and the best they could do was pray for the dead. Gaster had invented the cages and Asgore had used them, and they always struck the king as the last remaining devices of war. Now that Alphys had that trident, she supposed the war might as well have started again. Never before had a Monster killed a human so effortlessly. Sans thought, in horror, of an Underground all armed with those weapons of destruction, stronger than humans, more capable.

That can’t be how it is. That’s not what Alphys wants.

But it’s fine to kill one little girl and I’m already feeling calm about it.

“we’ll keep it here. won’t need it until we get seven, anyways.”

“Right,” said the Nice Cream Man, shakily.

Sans sighed. Might as well say what he was thinking. “probably isn’t the nicest thing in the world, to be trapped in there.”

“She seemed… tired, but couldn’t sleep. Like she was out of breath all the time, o-or… hyped up on coffee? Maybe it’s… nice to be able to… rest?”

“you think so?”

“Not r-really. Just hoping. Just considerin’ it as a possibility.”

“well, who knows? we’re learning new stuff every day.”

The Nice Cream Man smiled a little, his teeth chattering on his own command. “...Right.”

“and hey, if she can hear us, she probably understands why things happened like they did.”

“Or she’s regretting not staying here,” said the Nice Cream Man.

“yeah.”

Alphys emerged from the front door, clinging to the trident and toy sword, one in each hand. They were clean. Looked like they’d never been used. She looked out at the other Monsters blankly, and then turned to the Nice Cream Man. Their eyes met, and she nodded slowly. She said to Sans, “What do you think we should do with these?”

“trident can go behind the throne like it usually does.”

Alphys nodded again. “I, uh… and the sword?”

“probably shoulda put it in the coffin with her, right? since it’s one of her things.”

“Didn’t they already start taking it to Waterfall?”

“yeah, five minutes ago. we could catch up.

She sighed. “Nobody’s going to care if i-it’s not in her coffin. It’s just a limp husk. There’s no dust to spread or house to use for a wake, it’s just…” Alphys waved gently toward the soul.

The Nice Cream Man said, “Maybe she’d like it if you kept it here with her. So she isn’t completely disembodied, y’know?”

“that makes sense,” said Sans.

Alphys walked off the steps and settled into the flowerbed. Although it had only been two years at that time, and she hadn’t yet adopted her thin and sickly appearance, she was still so careful as to keep them all from being trampled. She planted the plastic cutlass, hilt facing upward, against the canister silently.

“There,” said the Nice Cream Man.

“Looks like some k-kind of messed up trophy,” said Alphys.

The soul gently gravitated toward that side of the glass and floated.

“Science,” she fake-exclaimed, gloomily. It brought a little chuckle to Sans, and he faced her, smirking without meaning to. His eyes said, it’s going to be OK. It’s not OK now, but it will be. That was how Alphys survived a lot of the time. She said, to the Nice Cream Man, “You should go home. Get a little rest. I-It’s been a pretty crappy day for the Underground.”

“could’ve gone worse,” said Sans.

“Yeah. Still crappy.”

The Nice Cream Man took a deep breath. “OK. Yeah, I’ll go.” He stood up slowly like a skyscraper. “Thanks, you two, for talking to me.” They nodded quickly and in sync, and he stepped into the house like a porcelain dummy on strings. For the Nice Cream Man, ‘home’ really was just a particularly large room in New New Home. After the earthquake there weren’t a lot of houses to go around, so Alphys and Sans began to keep dozens of Monsters in New New Home, and it effectively became a public place to rest and live. Over the years more houses were built, but inhabitants of Waterfall became inhabitants of the Throne Room, and so they took residence very close by. The Nice Cream Man loved the Capitol more than he thought he would. This is why he began entering it without permission, even when he got his own place to stay, and why he strolled into the house six years later to find Sans with ketchup on his fingers and a young Frisk sitting on the ground peacefully.

Alphys stashed the trident behind the golden throne with a deep, shaky sigh, one that evoked an anxiety and close, horrible breathing. She saw the trident and that was the last thing out of place except for the swimming pool against the floor, and now it all made sense, and then came regret.

She said, oh my God, I’m a killer.

Plain and simple.

Plain and simple.

Plain and simple.

Alphys was a Monster, but she had come to seem a lot like a human.

Her and Sans were the exact same height and walked with a distance between them- not too short, not too far- and walked to the Capitol.

It had this sort of emptiness to it that nobody could describe. Even after the massacre there were still plenty of people living it, and even before the massacre it looked like nobody lived there at all. Tall houses of gray stone with no glass for windows, with clean indoor heating and cooling, thanks to the wonders of the Core, with inhabitants that looked like they hadn’t slept for days. Oh, but they lightened up when they saw Alphys. When they saw her furrowed brow and loose expression and her terror and her sadness, and saw Sans trailing behind with a look on his face that wanted to say so much more than he was capable, they gathered around her and heard her explain that, yes, the rumors are true.

The human is dead.

I killed her.

The soul is in front of New New Home where it will remain for a very long time.

“The human is dead,

“I killed her,

“and her soul is in front of New New Home where it will remain for a very long time.”

Alphys was not Flowey who could talk to a crowd and Alphys was not Asgore who could lead everyone like both the commander of a military and like a king. Alphys was their friend, she had to be their friend, she had to be their friend.

“Queen,” said somebody finally. She thought it might’ve been Doctor Loox, the Astigmatism who had been her path to learning magic in another ending. “Your glasses are off. Are you OK?”

“Yeah, I-I just dropped them, is all,” said Alphys.

Her sight was broken almost as much as her heart, so she could barely tell one Monster from another as they shivered past her form. Sans caught them on the backdraft and gave them a grin and a sigh. In an instant hundreds of buildings in the Capitol flew by, except it wasn’t an instant at all, it was hours and hours and hours until Alphys’ reassuring smile stopped being so lucid and she could convey her pain through only her shaking hands, claws dug into the palms as she held herself tight. Nobody saw her as a killer or a human. Nobody saw her as a queen. She was whatever mess was in front of them, telling them solemnly and without tears,

“The human is dead,

“I killed her,

“and her soul is in front of New New Home where it will remain for a very long time.”

She reached the edge of the river, thousands of Monsters echoing her words in their ears, where her and Sans found a tall hooded figure who seemed familiar.

“The human is dead,

“I killed her,

“and her soul is in front of New New Home where it will remain for a very long time.”

River Person said, “One of seven, yes?”

“hopefully the next one is easier,” said Sans. “y’know. hopefully the next human just stays with us. that option’s on the table, and all.”

“But, yeah,” Alphys said, “one of seven.”

“The worst of today is over, my queen. Thank you for letting River Person know.”

Sans stepped closer to the boat which rocked sort of like his uneasy legs, struggling to keep his head upright, his half-grin and full-grin like a swinging ship bailing water. “can you take us to waterfall? we still have some people to explain it to.”

“It is very late. You two ought to be getting home. After all, word has already spread to Waterfall of today’s events. Instant communication still exists, of course, even though technology has waned without the queen’s constant attention.”

“Th-the Undernet’s still up?”

“Of course. They’ve done a very good job with it, I suppose. All things considered.”

Sans chuckled. “it’s a pretty good place. kinda unheard of, though-- very underground.”

“You mean, uh,” started Alphys, “in the pun sort of way? You mean, like, underground m-meaning, uh…”

“yeah.”

Alphys chuckled.

When the queen and her assistant made their way back to the throne room, the blood had been cleaned by a Woshua and the entrances in the ceiling were no longer shining, opting simply to bask the cave and flowers in moonglow. Nobody was there anymore. They limped inside. Alphys fell onto the couch in a fetal position and Sans stood over her awkwardly.

“you, uh. you gonna sleep here?”

“Yeah.”

“queen’s bed is in the overlook. i can even shortcut ya, if you want.”

“I’m good, t-thanks.

Sans took a deep breath and looked down. “night,” he murmured, before heading to his room which was just as tiny as he liked it, and sat on the bed facing up on the ceiling.

She closed her eyes and tried to sleep.

He closed his eyes and tried to sleep.

Neither had any particular semblance of success.

After a couple hours of trying, and after Alphys had turned on the TV and selected a particularly calm human movie, her phone, which was still stored in her long robes, rang loudly, and she answered it without a second thought. It was MK’s voice that came from the other end, quiet and calm. “Hey, ‘sis,” he said. “We’re finishing up over here. So, uh, I’ll be home in, like, an hour.”

“G-Good,” Alphys stuttered. “I might be asleep, so… door’s unlocked, all that.”

“Uh-huh! Okay. I’ll see ya in the morning, yo. Love you.”

“Love you.”

Alphys hung up the phone. She promptly realized that she didn’t ask how he was doing. A body-- a human body, he was burying somebody’s corpse, and she hadn’t asked how he was doing.

Eh.

Whatever.

It’s probably fine.

He’s probably fine.

She turned up the volume on the movie and sat back on the seat of the couch upright, trying to sleep and knowing she’d probably never get there. If MK came home she would try and make it seem like she was completely unconscious, waiting until his footsteps led him to his bedroom in the packed-full house to open her eyes and keep watching the flashing lights and colors.

Sans listed from his bed until he was leaning against the backside of the couch. It was like a limbo; only seconds ago he had been there, telling her goodnight, and now he was back hours later at the darkest midnight, staring at the TV screen. It wasn’t loud enough to wake anyone else up in the house.

“finding nemo, huh?” he said. Alphys turned around and nodded. “gaster used to put that on for you a lot, y’know. whenever something awful happened or you were just feeling sad, for whatever reason. you always said it reminded you of how you grew up ‘til we found you.”

“That makes sense,” Alphys said. “I wish I remembered that. Sounds like a nice thing to remember.”

“yeah, it was.”

“Y-You know what else I forgot?”

“mew mew 2?”

She grinned and laughed in a whisper. “I’d forget about Mew Mew if you stopped reminding me. N-No, that’s not what I mean. I mean I forgot about Undyne.”

“period?”

“Just earlier. We were saying that Asgore didn’t have anybody, but I forgot, he totally did! He had Undyne, Undyne was-- I dunno, like his kid. He lost his kids but he must’ve kept that instinct, ‘cus he brought her up since she was really small. She was her daughter, Sans, he did have somebody, he had somebody who loved him an’ took care of him. And I loved her. And I forgot about her completely. How fucked up is that?” Alphys was still smiling but it was incredulous and she looked like she might snap in half. Sans didn’t know what to say but forgot that he didn’t know what to say so he blurted something out.

“maybe you don’t need somebody like that anymore.”

“N-No, I do,” said Alphys. “Everyone does. I-I’ve just… I’ve had you.”

Sans laughed. “you know all i do is kinda walk behind you and sometimes say stuff to make you feel better. that isn’t anything special. i don’t do much at all for ya, al.”

“You do enough,” she said, putting emphasis on ‘enough’. Because the best he could was good enough, and all she ever wanted. “I need… I need somebody like that. I need you, I-I’ve needed you since the first day.”

“me too. probably would’ve just faded away if you weren’t in the bar that night.”

“S-Sans,” Alphys muttered.

“Sans, I want you. I don’t need you, I want you.”

“okay.”

Alphys reached over to his hand against the sofa and grabbed it tight, her claws digging into his violently. It felt horrible. “I want you.”

He got the message. He shivered. He stammered, “al, you’re vulnerable right now, alright? i don’t want you to do somethin’ like this on impulse.” He thought on it for a second. “also, i have nothing going on below the waist. tibia honest, i don’t think it’s physically possible.”

“Soul sex is half metaphor, anyway,” said Alphys. “A-And who gives a shit if I’m vulnerable? I o-only met you ‘cus I was vulnerable. Only reason w-we burned down Grillby’s was because I was a wreck. I’m a w-wreck right now. I just want somebody to sit in the wreckage with me. That’s all I’m s-saying.”

“i’m good at that. i’ve been there, al. i just don’t know if it needs to be anything more,” said Sans.

“Maybe it doesn’t need to be. I just… want it to be.” She swallowed. “If you don’t, I g-get it. It’s been a pretty bad day. L-Long one. Y-You can go head back to sleep.”

Sans shook his head, looking back down at the fabric of the sofa.

“You…” Alphys took a short, empty breath. “Are you j-just freaking out ‘cus you went through this whole thing before, when Gaster existed?”

“not the whole thing. just the start.”

“Sucks,” she said.

“i’m not good at this. i’m not good at any of this.”

“That’s fine. N-Neither am I.”

He closed his eyes gently, shaking. His grin widened a little bit as he whimpered, “i do this and then i lose you again.”

She whispered, “No.”

“i’m gonna lose you again, al.”

Weaker, this time. “No.”

Alphys released her grip from his hand just slightly, slowly standing up, staring at his face. She didn’t feel impulsive at all. She felt old. Her front teeth bit her lip instinctively. Her scales felt heavy. Suddenly he was even lighter than usual; a pile of bones barely standing, covered by a shirt and a jacket and not much more. Just enough. Just enough to keep him alive.

Warm.

Warm.

They walked holding each other through the house, which extended into the rocks, hallways twisting and turning until they found the overlook, which was really just a small, tall-ceilinged room in he very back of New New Home, which had burst out over the Capitol at a great height. It had one, windowless window, windless, winding up at just an angle to see the queen’s entire Underground.

Alphys and Sans closed the door, stood together, and watched the gray buildings sway.

The mating of two souls is something very hard to describe in human terms. It is a swirling pool of magic and the lack thereof. All parties define thousands of infinitesimal rules and then break them in a disorderly sequence of events. Their souls touch physically and so do their bodies, but only the former is truly important. For Alphys and Sans all they wanted to do was hold each other, to explore each other, gently and with a silent type of moan that she could not describe. Sans derived no pleasure; he needed warmth and that is what he got. He stole her warmth as she wrapped her arms around him. He had no particular semblance of skill in the act, and hardly moved, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except each other, in that moment.

He told her, “we’re gonna make it through this.

“we’re going to get through right now. right this minute. this hour.”

Sans was crying. She was crying. They were terrified.

“we’re gonna get through the hour and then the rest of the night, and tomorrow, too, and that day, and this day and that day, this week, the rest of this week, all year, all year. all year.”

That night was the first night in weeks that they finally slept. They didn’t sleep easy or sleep for long, but they closed their eyes and did not keep themselves awake with that feeling-- that feeling of uncertainty, of longing, of distance.

(That day and that night was the first time Sans and Alphys knew they needed each other, beyond anything reasonable, beyond what felt right or what was ‘supposed to be’. That was the first night of many that they slept in the same bed, cried over the same things and felt the same instincts.)

(The ninth human died two years after Frisk arrived, and there were three more after her.)

-

A short distance away, in Waterfall, MK’s short figure stood a foot underneath Gerson’s.

“You’re very brave to have come here to help,” said the old Monster. “Strong. I know you started to get to know this girl, so it’s a real shame that…”

“Y-Yeah, I got to know her, which is why I had to come, y’know?”

“Of course, kid. I’ve had to go to a lot of these things.”

They were at the ‘funeral’, but it wasn’t much of a funeral, because nobody knew what to say. MK had cast a word in earlier, saying that she was very nice and that he wished she had turned into dust so they could spread it on something. Then the other Monsters had a silence, and they left, and then it was just Gerson and MK cleaning up the site. They had buried her within walking distance of the shop, and now the ground sat only slightly upturned as if almost nothing had happened there.

Almost.

“You should go home to your sister now. I appreciate the help, but it’s really past your bedtime. Doesn’t she get mad when you’re late?”

MK laughed. “Naw. She knows I can take care of myself.”

“Ha, well, she’s not wrong.” Gerson grinned wide. The circumstances hardly permitted it. “Oh, before you head back, could you grab one of the shovels from over in the dump and stick it in my shop? Grillby dropped it and didn’t seem to want to get his fire dirty.”

“Alright,” said MK, and he waited for one more moment at the grave before taking off in the opposite direction.

The garbage dump was its own landscape, its own little world, wet and frozen over. There were paths of wood to walk on, and little islands of dirt and stone which were not yet dirty. The surface was picked clean but if MK spent a little while digging he was sure he could find just about anything. He hopped across pieces of plank and earth, scouring the menagerie for a sign of one of the magic-based shovels Gerson owned, but all he could find of particular interest was a flower, on the edge of the dump, where the trash ended and the ground began again.

The flower was sulking over something. It looked like there was the handle to a tool in front of it. MK stepped forward carefully onto solid ground where the water stopped, and then realized that the flower wasn’t just sulking, it was alive.

“Yo,” he said. “Are you okay?”

Surprised, Flowey immediately began to burrow.

“Hey, it’s okay! It’s okay! Not gonna hurt you!”

It stopped halfway into the ground, weakly breathing. Flowey turned around in his grave and his eyes were empty and unfocused and his expression was that of a dog who had recently peed on a rug. He looked like he were crying, but like Sans, that was only something he wished he could do.

“...Woah. I know everyone in the Underground, but I’ve never met you.”

Flowey didn’t stir.

“Do you talk? Can you talk?”

Flowey shook his ‘head’. His face looked like a few holes carved into the last flower of a dead plant.

“Well, you’ve got a mouth. So I’m gonna guess you just… don’t want to?”

It couldn’t shrug.

“That’s OK. I get that, yo. I’ve been there, a lot of times. Maybe it’d be easier if you just wrote stuff down. Y’know, in the dirt?”

He let a small thorny tendril erupt from the ground next to himself and draw out a miniscule diagram of the word (FLOWEY). It was nearly impossible to read in the dim light of Waterfall, but MK quickly understood.

“Hey, cool. S-So you’re Flowey? Uh, my name’s MK. My ‘sis is the queen.”

(DO YOU TELL THAT TO EVERYONE YOU MEET?)

MK laughed hard. “Well, everyone loves her! It makes people feel a l’il less scared to hear that. You know her, right? Alphys.”

(PLEASE DON’T TELL HER I’M HERE)

“Why not?”

(PLEASE DON’T TELL ANYONE AT ALL)

MK chuckled. Flowey’s eyes had pupils, on closer examination, but they were tiny white peas in a sea of black. “Doesn’t really answer my question, yo.”

(I AM NOT A GOOD PERSON. I DID BAD THINGS TO THEM)

“Well, I’ve never heard of you, so that can’t be right. Really bad people, I mean, you usually hear about them, get to know their names. Like Frisk.”

Flowey tilted his head and stared at the dirt. He looked tired. He erased the ‘I DID BAD THINGS TO THEM’ and pointed silently at the ‘I AM NOT A GOOD PERSON’.

“Not really for me to judge, but… OK. I-If that’s what you want, I won’t tell anyone. Promise.

Flowey wrote, (PROMISE)

“Yeah. I promise.”

(YOU CAN LEAVE, I AM NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT)

“Did you really need to spend two minutes writin’ that out?” asked MK.

(NO)

MK took a deep breath. “I mean, I like meeting new Monsters. Haven’t done any of that lately. So, uh, I’d be good if we just… stayed and talked. Or stayed and talked and wrote.”

(WHY ARE YOU HERE)

“I was coming to try and find a shovel somebody dropped. I guess that handle in front of you is part of it?”

(YES. DO YOU WANT IT)

MK delicately wrapped his tail around the half-shovel. “Wonder where the other piece is.”

(IS SHE A GOOD QUEEN?) wrote Flowey, getting faster at it.

“Yeah. Best we’ve ever had, though I guess we haven’t had a lot. How have you never met her?”

(I STAY HERE)

“Just so that you don’t get anybody tellin’ you their name and asking you to write stuff in the dirt?” MK grinned.

(YEAH, USUALLY)

“Well, it’s pretty far away from everything. You found a good spot.”

(I DON’T HAVE TO THINK ABOUT ANYTHING HERE, I CAN JUST WAIT)

“Sounds, uh…” MK fished for a word that wasn’t ‘boring’ and then abandoned the thought completely. “You seem really sad.”

(THAT WOULD BE NICE)

“What would? Being sad?”

(HAVE NOT BEEN SAD FOR A WHILE)

The kid next to the water scoffed and furrowed his brow. “Sounds like paradise, yo.”

(LONELY, NOT SAD)

“Aren’t they the same thing?”

The flower dug a little hole in the ground that meant, (I CAN ONLY FEEL LONELY)

MK didn’t quite understand, but he knew what the proper procedure was for a lonely soul-- a sit-down, a rest, a talk. So he didn’t stir. “Do you play any games, or anything? To pass the time?”

(DON’T HAVE ANY)

“I’ll bring some later. You sound like you deserve it.”

(MAYBE THE OTHER PIECE IS NEARBY) wrote Flowey, with all the good intent he could muster, for someone who lacked any good intent.

“Sure, OK. I’ll just…” He swivelled around and instantly saw it not twenty feet away. Flowey was so low to the ground that he couldn’t spot it buried behind a mound of dirt shaped like a speedbump. “Oh, that was pretty easy.”

Flowey started writing, (YOU FOUND IT?) but not before the distracted MK ran over toward the half-buried piece of metal and promptly tripped over the shaking, trembling thing it was hiding behind. 

On the ground he got a chance to see that it was not soil, that it was a body, a figure shrouded with huge, heavy clothes and the face of another human, who was quickly waking up.

-

-

-

He was their kid. Their best accomplishment. The thing they cared about most.

Did I take that away from them? Did I really deserve what he got? Did I deserve anything?


	2. Day Two (...and too much time)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alphys and Sans confront a drastic problem with the Core. MK investigates the tenth human, who holds a knife like she’s going to need it.

(Chara had this grin on her face, I remember. I rarely ever saw her look so happy. She was-- I mean, she was miserable, most of the time. She faked seeming happy for Mom and Dad but it wasn’t ever real, or at least it hardly was, so seeing her be so happy at something so small was confusing to me. At the time. I didn’t know her, I didn’t know what was eating her, what was making her this way. But right then she was happy. It was the kind of mulling, calm happy that people don’t TRY and express. They just... do, without meaning to.

She was in my arms. We were kinda in each other’s arms, but I was behind her, and we were both looking up. Laid flat against the garden. I was still a little kid, then. We were both little kids. I know Monsters and Humans measure time differently, but we were practically the same age. We were in the throne room staring at the holes in the ceiling.

“Az,” she said. “I think the Barrier makes the sunlight brighter.”

“What?” I said.

“It reflects off of the magic, or something. It’s not as bright on the surface. I swear it’s not as bright as it is here.”

“That’s okay. I’m used to it being kinda dark, anyways.”

She turned her head to look at me. Her grin faltered. “Someday, Az, I’m getting you out of this mountain.”

I hummed in agreement. Leaving the Underground was always something for her to enjoy, not me. It wasn’t until later that I became so terrified of Ebott, so traumatized, that I couldn’t ever bear to go back. Maybe one day I’ll live in a bunker underground, because despite visiting Chara’s grave every day in the hot sun and acting like it’s normal, I hate it up here.

I hate it up here.)

-

Elsewhere, in the Underground, in another ending where Asriel was nothing but a flower, there was a very small earthquake. Nobody noticed.

The human on the ground lunged at MK with all the ferocity of a rabid, starving animal, its form derisive and shattered like a pile of clothes on a pile of organs, except in the same moment it looked like a very young, innocent child; in its hand was a knife stained a muddy green, sharp and waving around sloppily. She looked miserable. She looked scared. And as a scared animal, starving, rabid, it continued to stab the blade toward MK.

“C’mon, stop!” he called out, struggling to avoid every swipe. He was used to the art of dodging attacks; every time he asked, Sans would give him training. Small movements. He didn’t need to get more than an inch away from any given attack. Anything more was wasting energy. So MK was wasting no energy as he avoided another right hook, another slice from the human. “I’m not even attackin’ you!” MK shouted. “You’re not gonna hit me, either,” he added frantically.

Flowey watched. What else could he do?

He was always good at holding back and watching. People had done just fine without him around. He had never interfered in this timeline and everything had turned out alright. Every time he tried, every RESET, only made things worse. This time he’d sat and waited. And then a human had fallen. And then a human had RESET.

And things had turned out so well.

“You’re not gonna hit me! Or you are, a-and it’s gonna suck, ‘c-cus my ‘sis will kill you! C’mon, just... back off!” MK ducked under a particularly violent, desperate swipe, and nearly tripped over a row of planks behind him. Water sogged his shirt. This was a lot different than training sessions with Sans; no amount of discipline or improvisation could match the unpredictability of a human. He winced as the copper sailed past his right eye 

Instinct.

That was what was in the human’s mind was instinct. After she woke up she resorted to those primal instincts, the kind that were burned into her soul from a younger age. The kind that had mellowed and then bloomed like the seasons, like a flower dying and coming alive.

MK almost died again, and the pained human screeched like she was dying herself, and then lunged for the twentieth time.

Flowey thought, people will do just fine without me around.

Instinct. Stab. Everything was a blur. Short sentences made up her mind as she jabbed, swung, no regard for care, no safety. One hit and you’re dead. One hit and you’re dead. One hit and you’re dead.

Do you know the most satisfying feeling in the world?

It's when you kill somebody with only one attack.

One singular, well-aimed stab or slash. Before the enemy even knows what's hit them. Isn't that the best? It takes preparation, high attributes, and a little luck... but it's so worth it.

One hit and you’re dead.

“Yo,” MK said. He was running out of places to back up. “Yo! I’m not gonna hurt you, nobody’s gonna hurt you!”

One hit, one hit, one hit.

A

You are fighting Monster Kid.

a - Strike

What do you want to aim for?

d - head

Attack head:

b - stab/large copper dagger - - Difficult strike, square

Instinct. Muscle memory. One hit, one hit, one hit... one hit is all it takes. One swipe, and it came close, and it came closer than close, and it was about to go right between that pitiful kid’s little eyes.

And then Flowey felt something, something he wasn’t capable of, something that wasn’t there. But he knew he needed to do something.

People will do just fine without me around. In general. People, as a whole, will probably do fine.

But not him, not MK. If I don’t do anything right now he’s going to be gone just like everyone else who has ever known about my existence.

So Flowey’s tendrils reached up from the ground twenty feet away from where he was stationed and tripped the human over, sending her careening into the ankle-deep water onto her side, and she realized all at once where she was.

Panting, MK kicked away the knife, and it fell deep into the abyss where it was never found again. The knife that ended the world. The knife that started this world. MK turned around, and there was the blankly-staring Flowey, his pupils the size of atoms, and he said, “T-Thanks, yo, you probably saved my life.”

Flowey nodded, and the human sat still, and stared up toward the sparkling ceiling far in the distance. She was panting. The plant matter twisted and turned around her arms so that she could not move them, yet the rest of her was free. She could probably break out, but the fall had made her a lot more lucid. The compulsion to fight was gone. She was waiting, like hitting the little button in the game that made her wait. MK looked down, and said, “...I’m not gonna hurt you, okay? Nobody’s gonna hurt you. So you don’t NEED to fight.”

Her voice didn’t come from her own mind. It wasn’t her body. She hadn’t had a body in a long time. “I was scared,” she coughed.

“Yeah. Yeah, a-and you’re kinda scary, too, s-so that’s why Flowey’s tying you up right now. Right?”

Then the human flopped onto her back slightly, and MK could see that her abdomen was pierced open, sliced by something which had killed her, and that it was bleeding heavily. She stopped looking like a vicious thing and more something to pity. Her body and fighting spirit was held together by adrenaline, and nothing else. “Oh,” MK exclaimed. “Oh, you’re... a-are you okay?”

“Eh,” muttered the human. “I’m sorry f-for...”

MK began to panic a lot more than when his own life was in danger; in two years so much death and pain had occurred that he had become quite an altruist. “I’ve gotta-- we’ve gotta get you help!”

Flowey’s stalk straightened up. He wrote as quickly as he could, (NAP)

“Nap? I don’t think-- y-you can’t really sleep off something like this, i-it’s a human! Humans don’t heal like that!”

(STAB)

MK tilted his head incredulously. “Why would...”

(LOOK)

“Look at what?!” Then, MK paused, and looked at the words all together. “O-Oh, yeah! Blooky knows healing magic, sorta.” He turned to the overturned human, who moaned silently in pain. He realized that she couldn’t be much older than him- a few years. Their heights were nearly identical. Although it looked like a very disheveled mess of a person, tall and broken, the human was unmistakably a child. “Can you stand up? You can lean on my shoulder.”

Louder this time and with more emphasis, she murmured, “Eh.”

“That’s... o-okay. I can’t really carry you, so, uh...”

Still staring down, as if the ordeal was something he didn’t want anything to do with, Flowey unearthed a number of vines from the muddy trash and lifted the human’s lying, injured body a few feet into the air. It was a very solemn affair. Flowey’s actions were out of obligation, maybe to MK, or to Queen Alphys, because if the human died here the soul would be lost and they would still be far, far away from their goal of escape. MK grinned, so frantic and wild, and began to lead toward Napstablook’s house through the dimness of Waterfall, which was growing dimmer, and growing dimmer, and growing dimmer...

For the human, it was growing dimmer.

MK whispered, as they approached the tall and thin building that was salvation, carried atop a mountain of thorny vines, “What’s your name? D-Do you have a name? I never asked the other humans if...”

She thought for a moment. “Suzy,” she said eventually. But it was a lie. Her name, if she was telling the truth, was Chara.

For Chara, it was growing dimmer, and growing dimmer, and growing dimmer...

 

When MK entered, Flowey did not follow. The tiny thing by the entrance simply sat and stared at the ground. It attempted to display the air of something without a care in the world, without a stake in the matter, and yet MK, who was familiar with the closed-curtain act, knew the truth was the opposite. Had Flowey the strength, it would be a loved member of the Underground. But he did not have the strength. He sat by the entrance without any strength at all.

MK was standing in the doorway looking back. “You don’t want Blooky to see you, right?”

Flowey nodded.

“Okay, that’s okay. I’ll meet you in the same spot as we were earlier, okay? I’ll meet you there soon, yo. Tomorrow, i-if this takes too long.”

Never before had anyone made a promise which sounded so sure. Never before had a promise been so casual. It was so tiny and so menial that Flowey accepted the proposal without even bothering to question it. He feigned a smile, nodded again, and descended into the ground.

“Another...?” said Napstabook slowly, “But... the other one...”

“I know, b-but we need your help,” said MK. There wasn’t a point to saying it. Napstablook was already casting a healing spell on the unconscious girl without a second thought.

“Oh… well, this house isn’t that great for living in… unless you’re a ghost. Especially since yesterday...”

“You heard about that?”

“On TV.... I don’t like things like that. It’s awful...”

MK did his best to shrug. “The human attacked first, so... w-well, I mean, so did this one, b-but I could dodge it, and all, so it’s...” He sighed, fumbling uselessly for an answer. “So it’s different.”

Napstablook swerved gently around Chara. The wound cleared of blood, slightly. At least she was still breathing. “Oh... are you hurt too?”

“What? No. She was tryin’ to stab me a bunch, but then she...” Promise. You made a promise. “She tripped over somethin’. Then I tied her up so that she wouldn’t keep attacking, but then I realized she was hurt.”

“... Very hurt.” Napstablook settled down on a good angle with which to heal, a constant aura of warmth surrounding the limp human’s form. Their two, half-transparent pupils glanced up at MK nervously. “Are you... going to start another party? Here?”

“I don’t even know why we had the first party,” MK responded. “So... no. I don’ even think we should tell anyone. Now everyone thinks that humans are bad, a-and that they all deserve to die. That’s kinda my fault. That’s kinda the way I said it.”

“Well, just... please don’t let anyone else... get hurt.”

“Okay, yeah. Sorry for doin’ all of this unannounced. I know it’s, y’know... a lot.”

Napstablook sighed. “It’s just helping somebody. Helping somebody is okay, I just don’t like the other bits. Like apologies and thank-yous and ‘but was healing her the right choice’ decisions. So let’s not do that.”

“Uh,” began MK, “okay. Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” The gentle hum of the fridge was the only thing which supported their voices, which otherwise echoed against the thick walls. “Oh... this might take a while... I’m not very good at healing.”

“I’ll just stay an’ wait. In case she wakes up, or something. You don’t mind, right? I won’t talk too much.”

“Oh… that would be fine.”

So the room was quiet, and it was matched only by the gentle sound of their breathing, and the even gentler sound of Chara’s heartbeat.

-

She patted at her labcoat and couldn’t find Sans’ phone.

Alphys’ breathing was heavy and slow and strained as the Living Underground swirled around her, an amalgamate of ten thousand faces, screeching and moaning. She went deaf. She went blind.

Come on, Al.

Escape.

Answer his goddamn phone.

The force of an unending, guttural scream entered her ears, filling it, and it was all the people she had left behind and all the people she thought she was saving. One segment of the Living Underground grabbed her and brought her back, and she didn’t struggle. The misshapen faces. The broken bodies. The floor was Sans and the ceiling was Alphys. The walls were all staring and blinking and yelling out their names and favorite phrases in a half-correct, completely wrong song, off tune, so loud it killed her, and it killed her heart, and she felt something enter her sternum, but she just whispered,

“Come on, Al.”

“Escape.”

She escaped, and woke up deep in the hours of the morning with the light still turned off and Sans by her side. He was so far asleep that nothing could wake him, even as her eyes slammed open and she shot up in bed, panting silently and in horror. 

Answer his goddamn phone.

Answer your goddamn phone!

Her phone was ringing. Loud. On the nightstand. As she reached over unconsciously to pick it up, shadows leapt from the darkness and tried to kill her, and out the window she saw the Capitol just starting to wake up, so rabid like animals, swirling and mashing together like a living Underground, and she was terrified, and she was on the ground again, struggling, wake up, wake up, wake up. Answer your goddamn phone! She had a swimming pool and she was drowning in it, and then,

she escaped.

“Queen?” came the voice on the line, shaky. “Queen, I know it’s early, but there’s a problem with the Core. We’d really like your and Sans’ assistance on the problem.”

Alphys rubbed her eyes with her remaining hand. Her claws dug into her eyelids, which felt alright. “W-What kind of problem, exactly?” Jokingly, she asked, “The exploding kind?”

“Actually, yes. It’s urgent, Queen, how soon can you get to Maintenance C?”

“Fifteen minutes,” she muttered inaudibly, and then hung up the phone.

If Sans had blood his eyes would be bloodshot, but instead they were practically empty and practically open. He reached a tired, half-asleep hand toward Alphys’ tail as she sat on the bed, clawing for warmth, desperate for warmth, but just as he did so she began to stand and get antiquated with the feeling of standing. His bony fingers grasped at the comforter, and he tugged at it, but she didn’t see, breathing heavy and breathing heavier, as she changed out of the mess of clothes she had flopped on the night before for something more suitable of a Queen. Robes which fit loose and made her silhouette muted, a cloak with the Rune on its face which would trail behind her, a crown that she hated to wear and that had been retrieved the day before from a swimming pool of blood, and the tiny golden piece that held it all together. She had one extra pair of glasses, just one. She’d have to ask Seez to make her another.

“al,” Sans muttered. “al, you up?”

“Uh-huh.” She slid from the center of the room back onto the bed almost immediately, leaning against the cushion. Her grin looked fine, but her irises looked nearly drained. “And you?”

“was thinking about it.”

“Well, think less. S-Somebody needs us at the Core. Emergency.”

He slowly sat up. “somebody? you catch a name?”

“The Oni, I guess? Definitely wasn’t Charles.”

“wish they’d just give us... five minutes to think, y’know?”

Alphys shrugged. “I told them I’d be there in fifteen minutes, but it’s not like we’ve gotta actually travel there... just make a shortcut. We have time to think.”

“oh, yeah,” said Sans, chuckling under his exhaustion, “that makes sense.”

She flopped onto the bed suddenly. “I haven’t s-said, ‘I love you’. I d-don’t know when you’re supposed to say it.”

“but you just did, al.”

“In context. With context. I m-mean, a real one. Meaning it.”

“i dunno. i don’t think there’s supposed to be a good time for it, unless it’s, like, bad fanfiction, or something. why do you need to say it?”

“Makes it real. Makes it... I mean, I just don’t want last night to not have meant anything.”

He grinned in such a way that, even in the darkness, Alphys could see it widen, like it was growing more and more comfortable with its own permanence. “yeah.”

She took a long breath and glanced at the window again. “I-I guess you should put some clothes on. You know, f-for courtesy’s sake.”

“court-esy? hey, al, we don’t really have a court in the underground. you’re the judge, jur...” He stopped himself before he got to the third item, but it was a little late. An uncomfortable air hovered and reigned in the room, and they tried not to think about it too much as they began collecting essential tools of the day, and their modesty, and Alphys’ meek, weak pride, almost as weak as her, almost as weak as...

She was a weak queen. Judge, jury, and most of all, executioner. A goddamn murderer. A goddamn murderer wearing the robes and the crown and the cloak, without any secrets, without any opposition from anyone in the Underground. She supposed she was fitting the role of leader very nicely. Weakly. Horribly. Like a key that didn’t fit being rammed into a lock. 

What am I meant to be doing right now? Unless Sans’ machines are wrong, I’m supposed to be on the surface, with him, with a different Frisk, with everyone alive, without a care in the world. I’m supposed to be somewhere else, anywhere but here...

Six hours, or two years, and I still haven’t gotten used to this job. I still get pissed off at myself every morning. I still have nightmares. I still think he’s more of a friend than a partner, after all this time, after all this time...

As if he was seeing that exact thought process run through her drowsy eyes, Sans, in his old jacket and old pants, wrapped his arms around her back. He felt warm. He said, as if he was just as unsure, “we got through yesterday, and last night, and we just got through the first ten minutes of today.”

“Today,” she murmured, “and tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that.”

Shortcut.

When they got to Hotlands and the Core, Alphys was reminded very suddenly that she hadn’t bothered to check if MK had made it home. She was filled with anxiety, which gave way for anxiety as she saw and heard the rickety, infinite mess that was powering the Underground. It was clanking and clamoring sort of like a machine might, if it were being tumbled down a set of stairs, and the heat it radiated was greater than ever before.

“Q-Queen!” exclaimed the Oni, who was standing in front of Maintenance Exit C. His thick eyebrows were furrowed and frantic, and he nearly took a sigh of relief upon seeing Alphys and Sans. Nearly. “And Sans. You’re just in time... things are looking really bad in here.” The two hurried, the warmth waking them up further, toward the entrance. He nodded and swung open the two metal doors, revealing the collection of catwalks and pillars and steel contraptions which made up the Core. It didn’t look much crazier than normal. In fact, over the course of two years, they had rapidly been trying to stop the insanity from growing, because they no longer had enough Monsters with the skill to keep it going. Charles and the Oni were the leaders of the skeleton crew, but they were stretched just as thin as Alphys and Sans.

“It’s... it’s the heat. Temperature gauge on Section ZD-4 exploded. Glass everywhere, Charles is trying to put out a fire in... look, we used to have these Astigmatisms, they were Seez’s sisters, they always knew where overheating was coming from. Geniuses. But now we don’t have them, so I’m freaking out! It’s gonna blow, I think it’s really gonna blow this time!”

“hey, no worries,” said Sans. “we’ve seen worse. maybe ice wolf just isn’t icing it up today?”

“No, no, we’re getting more ice than ever. The meld SHOULD be cooling, and maybe it is, but it’s not enough...”

Alphys stepped forward. The metal singed at her claws, but she bore through it. She needed a better look at the numerous hallways and passages below her, leading to the chamber in the center. Few places could see so much of the Core in such clarity. From any other place, it was a maze of claustrophobia. From above, from Maintenance Door C, she could spy on everything. “You said the gauge broke on ZD? Anything on any lower floors?”

“It’s the same temperature everywhere, Queen. Place doesn’t matter, it’s all burning!”

“yeah, it might be burning. but those gauges don’t break depending on temperature- it’s magic glass.” Sans walked forward until he was with Alphys, and the both of them stared around, sometimes in the same direction, sometimes in the opposite.

“Did you witness it get broken?” she asked the Oni. “Or just... find it?”

“Found it. Found it on fire. It’s only been like this for an hour, and until now we thought it must’ve been just another fuel cell overload, like last month, b--”

“maybe the gauge broke and caused the fire.” Sans considered, tilting his head. “but one fire wouldn’t raise the temperature everywhere.”

Alphys nodded quickly, and turned to him. “The Core of the Core, it’s NOT cooled by ice. That part uses cooling liquid. And those pumps run right through ZD... if a shockwave or explosion damaged the gauge, it could damage the pumps. It’d explain everything.”

The Oni said, “I-If those broke, it’d... that wouldn’t be good, Queen.”

 

The top floor of the Core, ravaged and destroyed and damaged. Cooling liquid and slurry and molten metal in a soup that swirling like some kind of black hole, spiralling down and spiralling down. Pipes split open at the seams and sometimes bisected, but all spilled open and leaking, and the heat and frigid cold proceeded to melt the camera Alphys and Sans were watching it on.

“Th-the ALARM,” murmured the Oni, “the alarm melted. That’s why it didn’t tell us about the damage.”

Alphys didn’t know what to say. She tapped at the glass to verify that it had gone dark. “Can it be fixed?”

“...Yes. I-I mean, maybe, Queen, I would need to get Charles and the bots, maybe even Madjick. I’d say we have about an hour before the overheating causes a...” He coughed gently. Sans nodded cautiously, but Alphys simply stood slackjawed. “It’s doable. Tough, but I think we’ve done more in less time. We’d need suits to minimize risk, and... ah, sorry, Queen, I’m thinking out loud.”

“you know, people don’t usually act this casual about the end of the world.”

“Ha, uh... no, it wouldn’t end the world. It’d just end the Underground.” He rubbed the back of his neck with one of his oversized arms, and then immediately reached it toward one of the pockets on his jumpsuit.

She was weak not to trust them.

“Charles? Charles, ignore the fire! Yeah, the welding fire! There was some kinda damage on the top floor, the Core of the Core isn’t getting enough cooling liquid!”

Garbled voices.

Weak queen. You don’t trust your people.

“How would the bots fizzle, Charles? They’re heatproof! Unless they’re not rated to...”

That heat.

And too much time. And too much time. And one hour.

The Oni said, “It’s worth a try. It’s our only choice.”

“N-No,” said the Queen, “you’re gonna shut it off. Shut off the Core. R-Right now, before it becomes too much to control.”

Sans turned to her. She stood a lot taller than moments before, or else the environment was twisting to match her shadow, leaning up against the wall as high as a skyscraper. “al, they’ve got this.”

“We haven’t ‘shut it off’ before, Queen. There’s a switch for it, but we’ve never DONE that. It got turned on while we were building it and it hasn’t stopped making power since.”

“I’m not l-letting you risk your lives a-and the fate of the whole Underground. I kn-know you can do it, but...

“Really, speaking a-as a whole...

“W-We can’t afford that risk. Please j-just end it.”

They were standing in the center of a control room in the outskirts of the Core when it stopped, and as Sans looked up to Alphys and didn’t know what to say, and as the Oni stopped it, stopped, and there was too much time and too much empty space to know what to do with. He flipped a lever and, ha, it was over.

Ha, it’s over.

Sans stood, and whispered her name, trailed off. Didn’t know what to say. It was the right choice.

The Core stopped, and they stopped it, and then the room got very cold very suddenly as the ducts of meld and magma slowed and stopped churning, and as the Core of the Core settled into a congealed, rocky mess. The Oni said, “I hope we can get it on again.” Then he went to retrieve his own assistant, Charles, and to fix the breaches on ZD.

“al, maybe it’s not a big deal. gaster obviously would’ve made it to be able to be turned off, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“and get turned on again. we’ll be able to turn it on again.”

“Probably,” she said. “B-But even if not, at least we’re not melting anymore.”

Along one wall was a row of batteries which extended into the wall; they had been charging for years and years, and hadn’t ever been drained. From the top-left, a gauge slowly ticked from 100% to 99%. There were sixty four batteries, all arranged and perfect, which would keep the Underground just warm enough and bright enough to be habitable. Nobody but the Core’s crew would know it was off, because barely anybody lived in Hotland anymore, and the stored power would last long enough to fix up the problem. Probably.

“should we tell them about this, or...”

“Eh. N-Not yet. They don’t need to know yet, it’d just worry ‘em out. Look-- we’ve got a lot of batteries. A lot of time to figure this out.”

Sans nodded slowly. “these past couple of days... not the nicest.” He chuckled, and she emanated a little smile. Exhausted, but there. And she didn’t let it fade, she just held onto it and shook a little.

She hated standing, right then, with nothing to lean on. With a short few steps she nearly collapsed onto a nearby chair. She murmured, “God, I haven’t even woke up. I just w-want to go back to sleep.”

He was getting cold, so he wrapped himself around her again, like he had last night, and for a second, he didn’t mind the fact that they had just disabled the last remnant of Gaster, and the last thing of his that still existed. He could live.

He could live, if the Underground still existed, and if there was still a queen.

Sans couldn’t remember six hours ago and didn’t care.

-

“H-Hey, MK? Are you there? Hey...

“We’re, uh... w-we can’t find you in the house. Turned it upside down, haha. Are you OK?

“Ha, okay, good. D-Do you need me and Sans to come and get you?

“...Nobody? What’s going on?

“...Okay. O-Okay. Me and Sans will be right over, and... I promise I won’t tell anyone. He’s f-feeling tired, so we’re not going to take a shortcut, we’ll just take the boat...”

Chara felt a lot of things. Chara felt as if she was falling, still falling, falling like she had been after she died, except she was perfectly still, half-unconscious on the floor of Napstablook’s house. There was a ghost near him, and a kid who couldn’t be much younger than her. She knew them both, but they were different. Not the normal sort of different that comes with time and experiences, but Monsters from an entirely different universe. It took a while to realize, a long time, but Chara had too much time sitting on the floor until the voices on the other end of the phone would arrive, so she did realize where she was. A dead timeline. Somewhere she had wanted to visit, out of curiosity. To meet, in person, the Queen and her assistant, the two who had saved Asriel’s life and Asriel’s universe.

But for them, that’s in the future. For them, I’m not supposed to exist yet.

If I do something wrong, if I let them know... it’d cause a paradox.

That’s nice.

This realization took all of a few minutes, a few minutes of staring at the ceiling and wondering, when am I going to get the strength to stand up? And then, suddenly as she realized, Chara was upright in the center of the room. She felt a hundred years old, and yet young as she had been when Asriel had stabbed her in the eye at the top of the world.

She was still missing that eye. Partner had a cruel sense of humor. At least the Underground wasn’t quite big enough to necessitate depth perception-- many of the one-eyed Monsters could vouch for that.

MK was facing away, and Napstablook was too dreamy-eyed to notice her, so she simply surveyed her surroundings and approached the kid as best she could.

His normal method for surprise is suddenness and loss of balance. He swung around, wide-eyed, until he could step back a few paces. He was still clutching the phone in a wrapped tail, even though he had ended the call fifteen minutes before. “H-Hey!” he stammered. Napstablook simply watched from a corner, silent.

Chara said, “Sorry.” It summed up a lot of what she wanted to say without being too definite. Good, she thought-- the less definite I am, the less I change the future from what’s actually supposed to be here. I’m not supposed to be the human who falls down here, not yet. That one isn’t supposed to fall for a while yet.

“You’re not... gonna attack me, right? We’re not doin’ that anymore?”

“Sorry,” Chara said again, and then coughed, “about that. Was just scared.”

MK laughed nervously. “You keep sayin’ that.”

...Damn, yeah. I keep saying the same things. What would a human say in these circumstances? What would Frisk say? “My name’s Suzy,” she decided to say. That sounds fine.

“You said that, too, haha... A-Are you okay? We tried healing your chest, but i-it might still hurt. And your eye...”

“They’re fine. Thanks. I-I’m just so confused, about all of this. You’re Monsters, right? Both of you? I thought you were, uh... a myth!”

With a grin that formed suddenly, MK exclaimed, “Yep! We aren’t so bad, despite what they say on the surface. J-Just one thing, that you’ve gotta know, is that you’ve got... two... er, I-I guess my ‘sis will tell you, anyway.”

Chara tilted her head. “Two what?”

MK took a short breath. “Choices. I mean, it’s one choice, but you’ve got two options, o-on the choice. There’s no real way OUT of here, so you’ve gotta either stay for a long time, or she, uh, kills you.”

“Stay for a while? That’s fine,” she said simply, lifting her own spirits. What she didn’t say was, the Underground is my home. I’ve wanted to come back here ever since the world ended. Living on the surface would have too many bad memories. Really, living here forever, that’d be just great. And maybe that Monster I saw... maybe it’s Flowey. The name Papyrus used for him.

Maybe I could live a life here, thought Chara. And maybe I’ll just erase it all accidentally. One or the other.

Alphys’ normal method for surprise is firmness and a fighting stance.

Sans’ normal method for surprise is wide eyes and hands at the ready.

They entered the house and were surprised at the same moment, and although MK faced the swung-open door as fast as he could, still the two of them prepared for the worst. She said to Sans, “Get the spear.”

Frustrated, MK yelled, “It’s okay, yo! She’s not hurting anyone.”

Napstablook gently hummed, “But… didn’t you say she attacked you?”

“Yeah, before! Before! I mean, she’s obviously not doin’ that now! Jeez.” He was getting a bit tired of mediating. He’d have to do a lot less yelling if people would just get along.

Alphys and Sans were out of sync as they put away their surprise and their caution. The Queen walked toward her quickly, with purpose, while her assistant held back. “You, uh... my name is Alphys. I run t-the Underground. I know you want to leave, a-as soon as p--”

“Not really,” said Chara enthusiastically. “I can stay. You’re MK’s sister, right? I’m Suzy!” She reached forward a hand, prompting a shake. Sans stood still, ready for something to go wrong.

“Oh,” said Alphys, nervously. She took one step forward and wrapped her claws gently around the human’s palm. It was cold, like it had been on ice for months. “W-Well, hi, Suzy. Sorry for, um. All the hostility. W-We just had another human fall down yesterday, a-and...”

A mish-mash.

A slurry of introductions and words that didn’t mean anything and apologies and welcomes, and, hey, my name is-es. A lot of blurring together words. Hey, my name is Alphys. Hey, my name is Sans. MK. Napstablook. But Chara already knew all their names, and she already knew what they were destined to do, what they were supposed to do. She knew their past, their history, down to many small details that she had picked up due to Partner’s watchful eyes. She spoke short sentences, vague. I’d love to stay here. I’d love to stay here. I’d love to stay here!

And as she spoke, Sans was watching, with his hands in his pockets. To his left was a bit of upturned dirt, where something had poked out, and rapidly shoved itself back in again. It felt familiar.

 

“Well,” said Alphys, “I guess there’s one thing we never got to ask the last one. Uhm... what did Frisk say, on the surface? What was Frisk’s story, about us?”

Make something up. Or don’t. It’s easier if I don’t. “...Frisk? Who?”

Alphys shrugged slowly, her eyes wandering. “Frisk... came here, and killed almost everybody. Then, they left. What with the, um, earthquake, and all that... we assumed they were well-known around the world, by now.”

“Earthquake?”

Sans and Alphys eyed each other at the same time, before facing back. “There... wasn’t an earthquake, up there? We thought we measured it to be something world-shattering... the power of a RESET. You’re saying...”

Chara shook her head, nonchalant. “Nothin’. Sounds like you had it bad down here, though.”

To her left, MK sighed, grinning a little. “Could be worse.”

Who was Suzy?

Who was Suzy, really?

In the haze of half-explanations and anecdotes and laughs and nervousness, you could ask MK or Alphys or Sans or even the barely listening Napstablook and they would tell you that she was a sweet, well-mannered girl that was too mature for her age, who had a shifting form that went with her somewhat scarred appearance, and who had a strange propensity for violence that held a knife at MK’s forehead once, and only once. She was an enigma, but an explainable enigma. If you asked any of them, they would tell you that she was the first good human to fall into the Underground since Asgore’s rule, or at least the first human willing to compromise.

If you asked Chara, her words would be simple. ‘That’s me. Despite everything, it’s still me.’

Suzy was not a murderer.

Suzy was not a psychopath.

Suzy did not kill seven billion people because a little voice told her to.

Suzy was not a collection of numbers, a collection of the number of times Asriel had hugged her or the number of people and loved ones she had let down and traumatized and ruined. She was not a disappointment. She was not Chara.

She was anyone but Chara.

Please, let me be anyone but me.

Let me forget that I used to live here.

“Well,” said Alphys, eventually, “I think... you should introduce yourself to the rest of the Underground, n-now. Since you’re caught up a little, haha...”

MK stared incredulously. “I told you not to tell anyone! I-If anyone knows there’s another human... w-well, they think that it’s the right thing to kill ‘em, now!”

Chara lowered her shoulders as Alphys stammered for a response. “They’re... the Monsters a-aren’t like that. They know we’re still giving everyone a chance.”

“I said to come here ‘cus I knew you and Sans wouldn’t do anything. But... b-but we can just keep it secret. She wants to stay, that’s okay. Maybe we wait until things are better, y’know? More calm.”

“Yeah. We... we could. I just don’t want to lie about even more things, y-y’know? There isn’t a risk. There can’t be a big risk. H-Hell, more than half of everyone’s crucifying me for what happened yesterday, none of them WANTED to see her die. It’s just... she was just...”

There was a little silence. These were the worst kinds of decisions, the kind she hated making, and the kind she was making every day.

Sans said, from the doorway, “it doesn’t have to be their decision. you don’t have to introduce her to them... she can introduce herself to you. and then whatever decision you make, that’s what the answer is. like what happened yesterday.”

“But she’s already introduced herself.”

“yeah, and she could do it again. in front of a crowd.”

MK perked up. “Yo, so... you’d be acting? Like, a play, to show everyone? Isn’t that more lying?”

“I’ve always liked acting!” said Chara suddenly, with a smile. “It’d be fun. Let’s do it. If it means they’ll be less scared, I’ll do it.”

Alphys sighed.

A weak queen on a stage acting like she’s strong. Ha.

Ha.

So there she was, in front of the throne again, but she was holding the trident this time, on guard. In front of her was the tenth human whose new name was Suzy, and a number of Monsters were already watching in tense anticipation. From his window in New New Home, the Nice Cream Man stared, and cursed silently at every movement, worried that it would develop into fighting suddenly. Chara didn’t have a knife but her acting, and her stage drama, and her pretend looks, revealed those red eyes that were more terrifying than any weapon.

Alphys and Sans were in sync as they held up their surprise and their caution. The Queen walked toward her slowly, with purpose, while her assistant held back. “You, uh... my name is Alphys. I run t-the Underground. I know you want to leave, a-as soon as p--”

“Not really,” said Chara enthusiastically. “I can stay. You’re MK’s sister, right? I’m Suzy!” She reached forward a hand, prompting a shake. Sans stood still, ready for something to go wrong.

“Oh,” said Alphys, nervously. She took one step forward and wrapped her claws gently around the human’s palm. It was cold, like it had been on ice for months. “W-Well, hi, Suzy. Sorry for, um. All the hostility. W-We just had another human fall down yesterday, a-and...”

And there she was, and the Underground saw her shake the human’s hands, and it gave them hope. In front of them was Suzy and further in front was a human’s soul, in a glass canister. But both held the same message. Two of seven. Two of seven. Two of seven.

Alphys stood in front of the crowd and grinned under her snout, and said shakily, “Better than last time, right?” It evoked a few laughs, but all she could do was exhale deeply.

The Underground could do it.

They could survive.

That’s what Gerson would say, anyway, about the event. He would say much later that it was one of the best moments of Alphys’ reign as queen, but that it was the start of a week that would end up nearly killing her. He was standing between two taller Monsters, and yet as he approached toward the clearing forming around Chara, his shadow ascended above them and New New Home and the ceiling. He had a tired grin. “It’s good to meet somebody so willing to change,” he said, stretching a hand. This time the handshake was quick, and Chara’s red eyes faded from view. “Ever since the First Human, everyone’s been quick to the punch. I suspect you’ll be the first since then to last more than a day!” There was a silence, and then he erupted into his scratchy, wise laugh, before dropping his hands and standing firm while the others watched.

“If you want to stay here, you’ll want to know its history. My store has some books, and you’d be free to use them. Welcome to the Underground, kiddo.”

“Thanks, Gerson,” said Chara. He hadn’t mentioned his name, and nobody minded.

She enveloped herself in the voices and the amazing sounds of the Underground and became what they were all talking about, and she met every Monster in the room and past the room, even the Oni and Charles, who were still panting from cleaning the derelict pump room which had been filled with acids and chemicals in a gaseous mess. She was familiar to many of them. She was familiar to most of them. With a knowing smile and no reservations she was the light at the end of the tunnel.

“I didn’t... no, I didn’t really ever have a family. Honestly, it could’ve been worse. The village I used to live in, they took care of me. Hardly a village, y’know? Just a little town, but we call it a village. And I’d be there, but... they cast me out. They sent me out ‘cus of what my parents did. They said I was a monster, some kind of ‘spawn’. So they thought... throw her in with the rest of the Monsters, right?”

And it was a true story, what she said about Suzy. True for her, true for anyone but Suzy.

Alphys was still exhausted from the day before, so instead of walking outside into the Capitol she let them tell the story themselves. They would twist it, but it wasn’t a hurtful kind of story. It was hopeful. If they misinterpreted what was going on, it would be positive. Things were getting better. Things were looking up.

She still had that microphone at the top of the stairs, and she only said into it, “Everyone’s going to remember this day. Everyone, now and forever. If nothing else, this is a sign that humans and Monsters...” She cleared her throat. “We don’t have to be enemies, anymore.”

Then, there was a very loud cheer.

Two.

Two of seven.

And not enough time to get the last five.

And not enough time.

And not enough time.

 

“We don’t have to be enemies anymore,” said Gerson, pouring something blue and murky into a cup. His bent-over posture was suddenly humble. “You don’t know just how important this is. The Queen spent an hour sharpening her trident last night, preemptive. She... doesn’t act like the king before her. She doesn’t hide it. Everybody knows she hates war as much as anyone.” He held up the cup in her direction, the dim lights of his store illuminating it just enough to see. “Tea?”

“What kind?” asked Chara.

“My own recipe. Sea Tea. Everyone’s a fan.”

“Then, sure.” She took it calmly and set it on the table in front of her, while Gerson sat. He rested his cane against one of the wooden legs of his chair and then continued after a long sip of tea.

“Asgore... well. You didn’t know him, but he had a different mindset than we do now. Everyone in the Underground would follow his orders to bring the human to him. The human or their soul, it didn’t matter. He believed in necessity, and ever since they... caused the death of his child, he thought of THEM as a necessity. I respected him, and respected his choices. But obviously they were the wrong ones.”

Chara tilted her head. “If none of the other humans were like me, then it can’t have been that wrong. You said he got six souls, right? That’s five more than you have now.”

“Four more,” said Gerson. He stared directly at Chara’s ripped shirt, straight to her soul, and then he chuckled lightly. “Monsters live a long time. And we’ll outlive you, that’s the unfortunate truth. ‘Til then, you’re the second soul.”

“...That’s a little blunt,” said Chara, managing a small grin.

“Ah, well, that’s how the Queen leads. No beating around the Vegetoid, so to speak.”

Chara laughed.

With another sip of his tea, Gerson calmly said, “You know what a Vegetoid is?”

“Oh, yeah. MK caught me up on a lot of stuff, when I first fell down here,” she lied.

“Ah, well, it’s a heck of a tragedy. We had three of ‘em after the massacre, but the cold of Snowdin froze them dead a few months ago. Dust scatters fast out there.”

Worriedly, Chara took a mouthful of tea. It tasted like a mix of sand, seashells and sugar, and she had no idea how. “Sorry for your loss.”

Gerson sighed out steam. “That is where our Queen has her problems, I suppose. She’s not very assertive. She told them to get out of the cold, but it wasn’t much use. At least Asgore could keep his people in formation. Alphys... well, she’s certainly the most pleasant to work with. Just as comfortable as when Toriel was still here. This must be a mess for you, haha. You don’t even know who Toriel was.”

“The leader before Asgore?”

“Ah, no. The leader DURING Asgore. The brains to the ‘brawn,’ and when I say ‘brawn’, I mean a fluffy pushover who cared for his subjects . Along with his Golden Flower Tea, he was their idol, and she was their mastermind. King and Queen, we had them for centuries. And I suppose Alphys is doing her best to emulate both, though Sans seems to always have her back. Maybe I talk about them too much, and maybe she listens too much.”

Chara said, “You don’t talk too much. It’s fine. You’re a lot more... uh, wise, about this stuff. More than everyone else.”

“Well, I hope you’re learnin’, kid. None of this seems to surprise you.”

“How could it surprise me if I’m hearing it for the first time?”

Gerson laughed a little. “That’s a bit backwards.”

“So what happened to Asgore and Toriel? Seems like they were unbeatable.” This was her first genuine question- she didn’t know. What could have stopped them? From what she remembered, Mom and Dad were the best leaders in all of the Monsters’ history, in more ways than one.

He downed the last bit of tea. The cold water and taste ate at his throat. “They were! Disgustingly so! But… well, after their children died, a great number of things happened. They disagreed, for the first time in a long time. They had differing opinions on what to do in retaliation. You see, the humans were half the reason Asriel died. Asgore wanted war, and Toriel... well, it’s mostly boring politics, now. You wouldn’t be interested. But, essentially...

“She just left, plain and simple. Locked herself away in the Ruins and never came out.” His eyes grew a bit misty, and he sniffled a little. It had been years, but the pain remained, sitting there, idle. “I don’t… I don’t think we’ll ever gather her dust for a proper burial. Not with the wind, the cold... not anytime soon. Alphys says, as soon as possible. She’s gone out there herself, but Snowdin is dead, now. In the air, you can taste that it’s dead.”

Chara finished off her tea, as well.

After their children died...

After their children died...

(He was their kid. Their best accomplishment. The thing they cared about most.)

On cue, Gerson filled both of their cups. “The other human, before me, went through Snowdin, right? Couldn’t have been that cold.”

“It wasn’t, not for her. Must be some sort of magic, making the Monsters feel like they’re in a refrigerator. And not the hot kind...” He paused. “I’m rambling. There’s plenty more to learn about the Underground, if you want to check out a book, or two. The northern wall.” Chara kept seated, staring around the room with no direction to orient, before finding the dim-lit corner which held two bookshelves and two bookshelves alone. Gerson lived in the cave where he sold his goods-- tiny, dark. A nice home.

“Wouldn’t know where to start. And I don’t mind listening to you, honest.”

Gerson chuckled, bowing his head. “My throat’s getting tired. Go, pick out anything that looks interesting-- I’m sure you haven’t had peace and quiet for hours, what with the Underground poking and prodding at you all this time.”

So Chara stood, reluctantly, keeping her tea on her table, and approached the shelves with her arms to her side. Anything that looks interesting. Anything that looks interesting.

Ha. Anything I haven’t read a hundred times before.

There was one book that fit that criteria, although it wasn’t much of a book. It was a notebook, tilted delicately on its side, and sheer impulse drew Chara’s hands to its surface, and propped it open.

(Did I take that away from them? Did I really deserve what he got? Did I deserve anything?)

Her arms grew weak and shook. She could read it. She could read it and hated that she could read it, and in front of her there were six figures in a circle, chanting her name, chanting for her back. And there was only one person in front of her who was clutching a trident that was stricken red and hovering in his hands like it was held only by magic. He said, “Go back to where you came from.”

She saw a lot of things. She had trouble wording any of it. Her voice shook as she said out loud, and as Gerson heard her say, “There’s going to be another one.” She saw a lot of things. She saw a lot of things.

In front of her the bookshelf caught on fire, and she didn’t mean to, but every movement of her hands accentuated the flame and it grew, and a frantic Gerson threw a bucket of water on its surface multiple times until the trance was over and the notebook fell to the ground.

“You burned my books!” he announced, more astounded than angry. “What did you... how did you... WHY did you...”

“Th-There’s going to be another one, after me. Really soon. Really, really soon.”

Gerson exclaimed, confused, “What?”

Chara stared at her hands twenty seconds too late and realized what she’d done. “Oh... shit! I’m sorry, I-I burned your... oh, shit.”

“It’s fine, kid.” He retrieved a metal scraper and dustpan from behind a nearby nightstand. “The clam can turn the ashes back into books, if you give her enough time. This isn’t the first time.”

“...Really?”

Chuckling, he brought himself to the wet floor and began retrieving the blackest ash into the dustpan. “Used to help Asgore take care of this kid, after his wife left. Undyne. Heck of a fighter, and wanted to learn fire magic as soon as she could. Turns out she wasn’t that good at it.” He shook his head, solemnly. More good memories. More bad memories. “Don’t ask Alphys about her, though. Just don’t.”

“Why not?” But Chara already knew the answer.

Gerson looked up. “You said somethin’ about ‘another one’. Another what? Another human?”

“Yeah,” said Chara, her voice still weak. “Another one’s going to fall down. Not long from now, either.”

“Well, I can only hope we’re not getting one every morning. The world’s gotta give us a break eventually!” He laughed again, and finished off the pile of ash, pushing aside the notebook gently and setting the tools down. “Funny that you’d ask about Undyne.”

Chara leaned on one leg. “Why’s it funny?”

“You already know the answer, right?” To this, she didn’t have a response. Gerson stood, and again his silhouette ascended until it was watching from above. “You don’t talk or learn or behave like somebody who’s learning this for the first time. And you knew everyone’s names before you knew everyone’s names, you know? You’re certainly a great listener. But you’re lyin’ about something, I can tell.”

No, you stupid, old idiot.

Don’t say it. Don’t mention it or you’ll erase the timeline. Just shut up and keep talking to me like nothing’s wrong.

“I act kinda weird. People have told me I act kinda weird, maybe that’s what you’re trying to say? I’m not lying about...”

Gerson put his claws up calmly. “Nobody talks about the Vegetoids, anymore. Doesn’t make any sense to me that MK would mention them, of all things, not if you only spent an hour together. You laughed at the joke because you already knew. Before you got here. Before you fell, I suppose.”

Chara exhaled, tiredly. “Don’t start this, and don’t ask.”

“Come on. I’m givin’ you a chance to explain yourself. Most people here wouldn’t do even that.”

No, no, no, no...

Just don’t ask. Just don’t ask!

Chara was standing there racking her brain, and to an outside viewer it might have looked like she was struggling with her options, but really she was coming up with a story. Something believable. A little lie to hide the big one. It took a few seconds, and then she scratched the back of her neck, facing Gerson head on. “I... do know about Frisk. Frisk’s famous up there. A-A survivor, y’know? Said that the people here kept trying to kill them, over and over. Said... that if anyone died, it was self defense. I d-didn’t say anything, ‘cus I thought that... if anyone knew, they’d hurt me, too. A-And I’m still worried, but... b-but...” Her voice faltered, and she shook, eyes wide open. Good acting. Good actor.

“Frisk told people everything about everyone that wasn’t dead. Then, the earthquake happened, and... they disappeared. The town s-sent me down here as bait, you know? They thought the Monsters must’ve taken Frisk, somehow... I know that’s wrong, now. And I’m glad to be out of there. It’s just...”

Gerson loosened his posture. His lazy eyelid opened slightly as he walked up, and patted her on the shoulder. “Nothing to worry about. The Monsters here, we couldn’t hurt a fly. You just can’t leave. That’s the only reason we’d ever lay a hand on you.”

“I kn-know.”

“Thanks for tellin’ the truth, kid. Lot of people can’t even do that. If you want, I’ll keep your little secret for a while longer. I’m sure the Monsters don’t need to know that Frisk said all those things about us...” He grinned.

Then, Chara stopped shaking, slowly. Slowly. Ease off of it...

Ease off...

Things are okay again.

In this timeline, Mom and Dad are dead, and so is Asriel. In this timeline, my whole family is dead, and in this timeline, it’s my fault. I made a plan that got him killed and split them up.

Good going, Chara.

I made a plan, and then after decades, he got brought back as a flower.

A flower, a flower, a flower...

Flowey the Flower. The Monster who helped MK stop me from killing him.

I can see him again.

I can see my brother again.

Gerson told her she could sleep through the night in the guest room, since New New Home was a long ways away. She accepted.

(Asriel said, “This is the kind of place that doesn’t get a lot of visitors.” It was apologetic, yet he knew Chara would appreciate, in some way, the isolation.)

 

The playroom in New New Home was coming together. Under the faint light of the setting sun above, the Oni and a satisfied Grillby laid down the last in a series of tube slides, laid in a row flush against one wall, with ladders and stairs adorning each one. The massive wooden room was decorated in windows that had no purpose but made it seem more open, and the walls were painted and colored and decorated in multicolor rainbows and murals depicting Monsters, both ones that had been lost in the massacre and ones that still lived today. Many years later, after everybody had left, the walls were recovered and taken by Alphys and Sans to their timeline to be placed in a museum.

Alphys was watching in the center of it all. She’d gotten exhausted lifting only a few things, but it was a good kind of exhaustion. In the playroom, she could drift away from thoughts of the human and the Core and the lies and the lies and the lies. She turned around, and there it was, another lie.

Snowdrake’s mother had, with the help from her disheveled husband, started to learn how to keep her shape. It was tough- always feeling like she was melting, a terrible mess of a Monster. But the Underground was ecstatic that she was still here, and she became ecstatic, too, in time. Even if talking was a little hard. As Alphys saw her form approach, her grin widened, and so did Mrs. Snowdrake’s.

“H-Hey!” exclaimed Alphys. “Lot happening today. Glad you c-could make it.”

Succinctly, the torn-apart Monster nodded and walked up. Almost in sync they peered around the massive room. “So... I got the go-ahead from Charles a few minutes ago. He says it’ll be safe for the kids to play in, y’know, tomorrow.” Mrs. Drake gave her a bit of a confused look, her eyes forming back into their Vegetoid-al shape. “Yeah... e-even with the human, and all. I figured, a little shred of normalcy would be really good. ‘Sides, we’ve been planning this thing for ages! Wouldn’t want to disappoint ‘em.”

The Snowdrake Orphanage was one of three in the Underground, but it was the only one not located in the Capitol. Although it was a bit of a trek, Waterfall suited many kids from outside the city better. Alphys and Sans had planned it so that they could fit hundreds of people in the playroom, all at once. Like a dream.

“Y-You know... I’ve always dreamed of a place like this, Mrs. Drake. E-Ever since you took me in, you’d show me the cave ceiling and say, ‘what if it was taller?’ I mean, this room isn’t as tall as it could be, but it might be just big enough...” Alphys chuckled, looking down. Mrs. Drake shuffled around her, taking it all in. The murals were especial sights to behold. “I hope it’s big enough.”

She turned around, her shapelessness fading as she became coherent again. Through her beak she muttered, “...S-Snowy would... h a ha...ve... have... loved, it,” and then she smiled wide, her eyes forming back into familiarity.

-

“i put mk to bed,” announced Sans quietly, standing outside the overlook door, to the bedroom where Alphys sat inside.

“Oh, awesome, th-thanks.” He knocked gently on the wood. “Who’s there?”

“me, sans.”

“Sans, who?”

“was just wondering if... we could spend the night together, again. felt okay, better than my bed. it’s a piece of sheet, really. really pill-owful.”

Alphys giggled. “Come in.”

She was wearing her robes, but missing her cape. Sitting in front of her desk which she only used at night, long after the dark room on the edge of New New Home by the throne was useless. Up in the overlook, she could watch the city like she always did, and she could write. Not in peace or quiet, because the Underground was plenty loud and rowdy. But in calmness. Awareness. Tonight, she was writing something for Chara to say, to proclaim citizenship in the Underground. “the meeting with aunt snowdrake go alright? no disasters?”

She shook her head. “She’s doing fine, honestly. I mean, some days I look worse than her...”

Sans laughed, tilting down from exhaustion, and took a long breath. He didn’t have to walk back to his room, tonight. He wouldn’t need to walk another step. This was where the day would end. “you look tired, is all,” he said.

“Uh-huh. You, too.”

“eh. just talked to a lot of people, today. burgerpants wanted me to play risk with him and a couple other guys, since the nice cream man wasn’t feeling good... burgerpants is really, really good at risk.”

Alphys tilted her head. “I didn’t know you c-could get GOOD at that game. Don’t you roll dice for pretty much everything?”

“i guess it’s just a question of which dice you’re willing to roll, y’know?” He took off his jacket and felt even colder than before.

“Yeah, makes sense. Haven’t played a game with him in weeks. Maybe t-tomorrow, after the daycare thing is over.”

Sans nodded slowly, staring out the window. “just one day where nothing crazy happens.”

Alphys followed his gaze. “Yeah. Just one would be nice...”

One by one, the lights in the distance flickered off. One by one, the Underground fell just as soon as it had awakened. It felt like only hours before, a girl named Suzy had fallen, and now she was becoming the newest resident of her old home.

A beacon of hope that did not worry, and was not afraid.

 

Somewhere in the Underground, somewhere deep in Hotland where the Core was at its weakest, a small piece of now-brittle metal split apart like it was exploding.

And another.

And another.

Somewhere in the heart of the Core, a light flickered on accidentally, and there was a very loud screech of steel against steel. But nobody noticed.

 

Nobody really noticed at all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He wasn't there. He wasn't in his chair, sitting up straight, sitting up proud. He was floating a few feet above the rickety chair that couldn't fit him. He wasn't in the air around him, he wasn't breathing the fumes around him, he wasn't feeling the feelings around him. He felt nothing, except he felt numb. How long had he been there?

Asgore asked himself, how long have I been here? At least ten years. At least a hundred years.

He wasn't there. He wasn't in New Home sipping tea that he had spent hours preparing. He wasn't staring at the door waiting for somebody to break in unannounced. He wasn't dead like that Asgore, he assured himself, he was perfectly alive. He was just somewhere else. Somewhere far away. Behind his eyes, behind my eyes, thought Asgore, there's no 'me'.

He wasn't there.

He wasn't there.

He felt numb.

"King," said somebody, "King Dreemurr. King Asgore, the Queen... she's not answering the stone door any more. The Ruins are locked, we're not sure what to do. Should we knock it down, King?"  
"King Asgore?"  
"King Asgore?"  
"King Asgore?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Sometimes I feel like I end these too suddenly. I've written everything that belongs in the chapter, but because I don't use a lot of planning, there's always this feeling that there's some plot point or character I'm missing. Oh, well. Rushed to get this one out by today, but I'm glad I did.


	3. Day Three (...and the feeling of freedom)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flowey reveals his true identity, and somebody else catches on. The Nice Cream Man, craving the feeling of freedom, comes up with a new idea to leave the Underground, and proposes it to Queen Alphys. Sans stacks plates.

(I know, I know. There aren’t a lot of people left to make ‘documentaries’ anymore. I know that used to be a thing for humans, to make it all... dramatic. Monsters, we’d just keep history books. I guess I just don’t know why you need to ask me all these personal things about Chara. Yeah... I knew her. And I’ve already told you why I think she did it.

But, okay. I guess I’ll tell you about the six humans.

She’d already been down for a few days. She fell in the Ruins, or what’s left of them, now... Mom and Dad took her in as their own. We met immediately. She got attached, but it wasn’t to just me, it was to everyone. Nothing fazed her, y’know? Chara could handle giant Monsters surrounding her and treating her as family. She told me that the other humans threw her down here because ‘she was a monster’. They were laughing as they did it. She said that it was a few drunk guys and that she called for help, but nobody was around.

It’s not that all humans were bad. It’s not that nobody wanted to save her. But as soon as she fell down she was happier than ever before. That town... that town’s the first place she massacred.

But before any of that, six humans came into the Underground through the Barrier. They had weapons of their own... an empty gun, shoes, a frying pan, things like that. Like a militia who had organized in a matter of minutes. They were lead by this tall figure, didn’t ever get their name. They had a notebook. There were all sorts of runes inside that nobody could read.

They said, “Give us the girl.” They were ready to fight, all six of them. Chara and me were hugging the throne for balance because we were terrified. Asgore was the only thing between them and us.

He said, “Go back to where you came from.”

...

Dad killed six humans to protect her. And I don’t think it made things any better. She was terrified of him. This facade, this nice fluffy Monster who could never hurt a fly... had killed six members of her species. When it was all over, he was red. He was red all over, and then he turned around to face her, a weak grin on his face.

She couldn’t look at the notebook anymore because she started crying whenever she saw it. Eventually me and her decided to burn it.

Staring at the flames...

Watching them crackle...

I saw her eyes better, there. She was thinking.

I saw her eyes better, and they were red.)

-

MK carried himself light. It was still early-- couldn’t have been long after midnight. Right after midnight. MK couldn’t carry a watch, but he could carry himself light, light enough that he wouldn’t disturb the mud below him and then the paper and metal and trash and trash and trash. Then he carried himself light enough and on the tips of his toes enough that he could see that little platform of dirt where the flower was looking the other way. He carried himself light enough that it was silent, that his approach was silent, and that he managed to avoid splashing dirty water on Flowey, who turned around on instinct. His face of worry and terror quickly faded out of terror, but after the earthquake, he always looked worried.

MK nodded quickly, grinning cautiously. “Hey, s-said I’d be here. Sorry if I scared you.”

With skill, and only two vines which came delicately out of the ground around him, Flowey wrote (I learned how to do this faster in the dirt. Also no more all-capital writing)

“Yo, it’s okay. I brought paper and pencils.” MK motioned his head toward the pack around his backside, which hung loosely around his waist.

He shivered it off with his tail and began to zip it open, but Flowey was already frantically writing, (No! No, they can find paper they can find paper. Nobody can know, please)

Slowly MK looked back up, concerned. “We’ll just get rid of the paper...? Like, burn it?”

(Too slow! If somebody comes here I have to leave and you have to mess up the dirt so nobody can read it, nobody can know.)

“Jeez. You’re kinda obsessing over that one. Don’t you think it’d be easier if you just... oh, you’re writing. Sorry.”

(I am taking the easiest way, this is the easiest way, I’m not a moron I’ve thought it through. I don’t deserve them knowing about me, I’m only telling you bec)

He stopped writing, contemplating, tilting his head to the side. “I mean, I’m not pushing you to do anything. If you wanna, you can keep writing in the dirt.”

(THANK you)

MK stepped forward, crossing his legs as he sat down carefully next to where the words were being written. Flowey gave him another overly-concerned look, and dug the canvas empty with a swipe of the vine. He was unsure what to do next. “So... um. I-I’ve been wondering. Why can’t you feel, anymore? You could, once, right?”

(A long time ago. I know what it’s supposed to be like but it just never happens. I can act like I’m feeling but it’s just empty.)

“But... why, though?”

Flowey contemplated. Nobody. Nobody has ever known except for the moments before I reset. Nobody’s known for more than an hour. Nobody’s known. I can just act like... like I’m going to restart right after this, like there aren’t any consequences. Just one person who will get it. Just one person who will understand.

(I died and Alphys brought me back to life as a flower but she did it wrong so I did a lot of horrible things and then Frisk came and I can’t do that anymore and then the earthquake and now I know how horrible it was and I can’t feel and I can’t feel and I can’t feel and)

(and I reset a hundred million times like Frisk except I could never leave and at first I loved everyone and I fixed everyone but I couldn’t feel love so I tried everything and killed them and reset over and over and over, a hundred million dead timelines and people keep saying Frisk’s evil but I’m the most evil thing on the planet and if you tell anyone I WILL KILL YOU)

(No no no I won’t I don’t want to do that anymore please just please PLEASE don’t tell anyone please MK you’re the only person I’m telling this to because I don’t know I don’t even know why, but it seems like you’re reading this and not running away or screaming so I mean maybe that’s a good sign but the only reason I’m even still here and not killing myself is because I can’t even feel regret or pain or sadness I just know it’s wrong and that I don’t deserve anything like a voice or friends or anything like that because it’s wrong and I’m evil and if you could just tell me that the optimum path is dying right here then that’d make things a lot easier but I’m trusting your opinion on this one MK because you’re the only person, the ONLY PERSON I’ve ever told about this after Frisk showed up, and across every timeline and every single plane of existence you’re the first person who hasn’t run away)

His expression didn’t change. Flowey still looked quite worried.

“H-Hey...” started MK. “No, no... don’t... you shouldn’t die, no. I-I don’t know, b-but you... NOBODY could’ve known about dead timelines, yo. The ‘optimum path’ isn’t dying, nobody deserves that. Man, this... this is a lot of stuff. T-To read. I don’t think anyone who isn’t in pain could write somethin’ like this.”

(It’s not a POEM, like I’m writing this as prose from the bottom of my soul or something, it’s the truth!)

“I know! I’m just saying th-that even if you don’t think you feel pain, you definitely seem l-like it, to me...” MK sighed shakily. “Man, uh... it was probably good that you told someone that, though, y’know? Probably sucks to keep all that in, just sittin’ here alone. Were you sittin’ here alone for two whole years?”

Flowey breathed gently. (I was waiting after Frisk left. Still mad, still an ass and waiting for my power to come back so I could hurt people again, or something, I forget. Then the earthquake and Alphys and Sans figured it out, and yeah, just waiting here. Just staring at the wall. I guess it’s been a whole year since then, so long. Losing track of time just waiting and waiting and waiting because that’s what I deserve, it’s my punishment. You should just leave and never come back, I’m selfish and dumb and stupid f)

“Okay, okay, okay, stop writing. I get what you’re tryin’ to say. I don’t care what your punishment is, yo. I just want to keep you company. Everyone else in the world’s got company, it’s not like they’re missing out if I’m here.”

(YOU are great company. Go give that company to your sister or something. Or literally anyone else.)

MK grinned. “They’re all asleep. So you’re stuck with me, ‘cus I’m stuck with you.”

With another confused look, Flowey wrote, (Everyone’s asleep? So you’re awake in the middle of the ‘night’ because... you wanted to talk to me? That’s dumb. I could have just waited until morning. I bet you’re exhausted)

“Naw, Flowey, I have it all mapped out. They’re doing the event thing at three PM, so I can stay here with you ‘til morning and nap until then.” He laughed nervously.

(Still exhausted, though)

“Uh-huh. Worth it. I-I didn’t really realize you’d explain everything so quick, but... yeah. I also brought a couple board games in the bag, in case you wanted!”

(...If that’d make you happy. I haven’t thought about playing games in a long time. Is it one of Asgore’s? If so you’re gonna lose automatically, I’ve won every single one enough to know the optimal strategies)

Excitedly, MK stepped forward toward his bag and unzipped it open fully with the thinnest part of his tail. “Nope! I got good at those games, too, s-so Alphys showed me how to make my own games. They’re kinda weird, but... o-okay, Flowey, what sounds better right now? Two Rulers of the Underground, Invention, or Bridge Lightning? They’re all competitive, but I’m developin’ this other one, as sort of a cooperative sequel to the first one, but it’s not done yet, so...”

It seemed like MK was quickly forgetting who Flowey was, and forgetting Flowey’s long-winded explanation, his frantic writing in the dirt as he realized slowly just how pathetic he was. It seemed like MK was perfectly fine continuing like nothing had changed, and somehow this was agonizing. Every other time Flowey had revealed himself, there were endless guffaws and hugs and apologies and cries, and more questions, and more running away, and running away, and running away. The reveal was the best part. The reveal was the most suspenseful part. He only had one shot at it this time, and he’d picked the most understanding and malleable person in the Underground. Figures.

Maybe he wasn’t just doing it for that good, suspenseful climax. Maybe it really was a nice thing to have somebody else on his side, for a change.

Flowey won his first game of Bridge Lightning but lost his second, and though MK continued to suggest the other games because they were more based on strategy, the two kept lining up trails of electricity with pieces of wood over and over. Flowey didn’t write anything during a given round, just stared intently at the blue and red lines and thought.

(The L-shaped piece could be removed, and the starting places could be a bit closer. The L-shaped piece just makes the game slower than necessary)

“What if it was curved instead of straight? And one side’s longer than the other?”

(I guess that’d work better. I’ve been winning using curved pieces and the bridge, so maybe I’m biased)

“Uh-huh. But that’s just ‘cus you’re already figuring out the best strategies. Maybe I-I could move the game toward a more... curved playstyle? Y’know?”

(More variance is good. More variance means it’s harder to master. Keep the straight pieces, just lose the L-shaped one)

MK nodded. “Okay. I’ll make some prototypes next time we play, yeah?”

Next time we play.

Next time we play.

This isn’t flash in a pan. This doesn’t need to be a fluke.

(How long have we been playing?)

“A couple hours, I guess.”

(The game’s not bad. Keeping me distracted, a little)

“W-Well, you should try the other ones, too!”

Flowey smiled a little, hopeful. Knowing he’s supposed to be hopeful and matching it with the right kind of smile. He wrote, (Next time we play, yeah?)

Then it was quiet again...

Then it was so quiet that Flowey barely heard MK leave. His eyes became glass. His mind told itself, time to hibernate. Time to wait. Time passes so quickly if I just wait, a year every minute, waiting and waiting and waiting for the end to come. If it’s ever going to end at all. I stare at a wall forever and ever. I had a secret here and now it’s quiet.

Then it was loud again, loud as Chara’s footsteps as she crashed from the muddy water onto the muddy shore of his abandoned island. He turned and saw her, and sighed just as she started to speak with her unfitting smile and red eyes.

“Hey, I know MK is trying to keep you a secr--”

But before she could finish, Flowey had sunk into the ground.

-

The dozens of bedrooms inside New New Home were flooded with sunlight from the cavern ceiling, as time passed from midnight to morning and then noon. The golden flowers of the throne room became like metal, reflective and shiny. The glass of the windows started glowing and the wooden floors beside the beds became warm to the touch. Even in the Capitol there would be faint light; a few holes in the massive gray ceiling had opened after the first earthquake. Had Burgerpants a choice, he would have left New New Home a long time ago, and taken up somewhere dark. A respite from light, both artificial and natural. But there he was, still, wiping his eyes until they were sore and closing his blinds as much as they would go.

Light sensitive. Nauseous. Anxious. Probably feeling worse than he is, but at least I’m leaving my room for more than twenty minutes at a time.

Burgerpants slid open his door with all the enthusiasm of a dead cat and lurched down one of the halls of New New Home with a limp. It was noon; he didn’t feel like waking up at a reasonable time, because his work week was already over. Not that Burgerpants worked on a schedule. He just took a break from writing opinion pieces four days out of seven. He was lost amidst tiredness as he went from wall to wall, leaning against the rough wood, making his way indelicately toward the Nice Cream Man’s door.

One knock. No response.

“I know you’re in there, man,” said Burgerpants. “You haven’t left your room except to go to the bathroom, all yesterday. I tried to call, but you’re phone’s off. You sick, or something?”

Three knocks like claps. No response.

“Or asleep. Sick or asleep. Either way, get the door already, ‘John Doe’.”

A while back, Burgerpants found out that humans used ‘John Doe’ as a generic name for a man without a known name. The Nice Cream Man found this hilarious and decided to take it as his own, at least when the two were talking to each other. It was a hell of a lot better than ‘the Nice Cream Man.’

Five knocks and the door came open slowly. The tall, blue-furred Monster inside didn’t look disheveled or tired, but he moved as slowly and as weakly as a statue. “Sorry,” he murmured. “Just feeling... just not going anywhere, y’know?”

“Uh-huh. I was worried, is all. Can I come in?”

The Nice Cream Man motioned dramatically with his arms for Burgerpants to enter, who accepted with a tiny chuckle. “You missed the Risk game, so Sans played for you. And FLOORED us.”

“What? Really?”

“No, no, kidding. He hid in Australia and fell asleep three times.”

The Nice Cream Man shrugged gently and fell into a chair behind him, next to a desk. “Glad you guys had fun.”

Burgerpants wiped at his eyes again. Gotta stop doing that- it’s not making the soreness any better. He closed the door and leaned up against it. “What’s wrong? Haven’t seen you get like this since the massacre. Is it ‘cause Alphys killed that kid?”

“...I guess. Kinda. Just thinking about it, nothing’s really... wrong.”

“You sure?”

The Nice Cream Man frowned a little and looked at his desk. “I was thinking, why doesn’t she just go through the Barrier?”

Burgerpants said, “What?”

“Just take one of the souls and go out and kill more humans so we have seven souls.”

“It’s not like you’re the first person to come up with that. What’s the point of opening the Barrier if we’re now, y’know, hostile with the humans? No point. We’d just get massacred and corralled in here like before.”

“So? The world’s changed, r-right? It’s been a long time since last time. People would understand that we needed to leave. They’d forgive us for six dead people eventually. And even if they don’t, the only people they really need to blame is the leader. And...”

Burgerpants shrugged. “Alphys is too much of a coward to do that.” He chuckled a little.

The Nice Cream Man sat up a bit in his chair, incredulous. “She’s not! She’s the best leader we’ve had. Why do you need to be an asshole to her and Asgore all the time? It’s like... you’re an asshole to everybody with any responsibility ‘cus you’ve never been there. Sometimes, it’s-- I just want you to shut up about it.”

The tiny room wavered in and out of vision as sunlight passed rocks above. “...Who are you, and what’d you do with the Nice Cream Man?” He laughed nervously.

“Sorry. I-I know, it’s just what you do. It’s the persona for the show. Alphys... just isn’t a coward, is all I’m saying.”

Nodding cautiously, Burgerpants said, “Well... not as much as some people. She’s not exactly brave.”

The Nice Cream Man replied, “She saved my life. A-And she’s the only person who stepped up to rule afterward. Absolutely no-one else would have.”

“You still know she wouldn’t go out and kill humans for us. That’s what I’m pointing out.”

A gentle silence. ‘John Doe’ sighed, his tall ears furrowed and falling as he stood up from the rickety chair and approached his window, shining like magic. He stared out at the garden. “Out there, I saw that she would. She... she’s...” He sighed deeply and uncomfortably. “I’m supposed to go out there, and be nice, and be happy and sell Nice Cream, all day, all the time I’m thinking about standing out there watching Alphys kill her. And then I’m standing up here and I can see, that look on her face, with Suzy... she’d do it again. She’d do it if it meant getting us out of here. And I can’t stop thinking about it, ever, so I’m staying in here so I don’t have to think about... the blood and the yelling and the things she was saying.” He turned back toward Burgerpants with his eyes wide open, still watching something far away.

“...Hey. Sorry. I wasn’t around to see it, but... that sucks. Maybe you should get out of this room. Y’know... get some air from the Capitol. Or Waterfall, at least.”

“Uh-huh.”

Burgerpants swung open the door, clinging to the handle and grinning. He was a caricature of himself, always off-model and overexaggerated. Hard to take seriously a lot of the time. “And maybe you can tell Alphys about your idea. If she’s like you say she is, she’d do it, right?”

The Nice Cream Man scratched at his left hand. “It was just a thought. I bet she’s already gone through it a hundred times in her head, by now. That’s how she is.”

“If Asgore was here he’d get it done.”

“So why didn’t he, back then?”

Burgerpants chuckled. “Well, you know how HE is. Was. He wouldn’t go back on his word, which was to stay and wait until we had strength. ‘Sides, we had a Royal Guard back then. He didn’t have to be the one to kill them, most of the time. I bet it helped his conscience. But if things were like they are now, he’d have taken that girl’s soul and gotten us free. Freedom would be great, right now.”

“Uh-huh,” repeated the Nice Cream Man. “I might get out of here to check out the, uh. Orphanage thing, whatever. Maybe bring some Nice Cream.”

“It’s in a couple hours. Hope you have some already made.”

The Nice Cream Man grinned again, but it was weaker. His eyes did not waver. “I actually do, for once. Left the cart freezer running. Maybe this isn’t that bad of a week. And...” He took a breath, staring at the floorboards. “Maybe Suzy likes sweet foods.”

“Doubt she’ll be coming, though. People would freak out too much,” said Burgerpants.

“Oh, yeah. I guess. It’ll just be for the Monsters, then.”

 

He woke himself up. Yellow and red clothes to go with the blue, even though he’s not a big fan. It was what people recognized from a distance. That, and his big ears. They were standing tall, because when they were standing tall it meant that things were nice. Things were always nice for the Nice Cream Man. He drove his cart by pushing it and it rolled along the stone outside New New Home and into the massive, all-encompassing playroom, which was complete with an infinite jungle gym and tables which Alphys was setting up.

Or, at least she had been a while before he walked in. She was holding a stack of plates, her eyes half-closed and exhausted, and thinking about something else.

The next one, the next one, the next one. Another shake and she was off her feet. She was running when she fell down and stopped being able to run as the ceiling fell down and melted and collapsed and screamed like a Living Underground, of a hundred faces, of a thousand faces, of a million that she had killed. And her head was ringing. And she saw him again, she saw Sans, and he was splayed underneath a big piece of metal like a big tree trunk that was still pumping orange-hot steel as it sweltered and screeched.

Sticks and stones. Sticks and stones.

Don’t die, Alphys.

She shook and was off her feet and crawled over to him, and the cave exploded again, another shake. She tried to get his hand. He had a grin on his face and then it wasn’t such a grin. She was going to shout something to him over the roar but it wouldn’t have been heard. She held his hand, she held his hand, she held his hand.

“Alphys?” said the Nice Cream Man, smiling cautiously as he rolled the cart toward her. She snapped awake again and put on her best grin and tried not to let the crown fall off her head.

“H-Hey! Sorry, just zoned out, a little. H-How are you feeling?”

“Great, actually. Good enough to be up and walking around, anyway, haha... was wondering if I could give away some Nice Cream. Y’know, for the kids?”

“Oh, yeah!” Alphys set down the plates onto the table, and deposited one down, equidistant from its neighbors. “I’m sure th-they’d love that. Could you help me out with these, for a second?”

The Nice Cream Man nodded and grinned and flopped his ears and did all the things he was supposed to instead of thinking about Alphys half-submerged in a swimming pool made out of blood. They were both doing that. They were both thinking somewhere far away, drifting away, and they weren’t there, and they weren’t there...

He thought, I’m not that sad. I’m the Nice Cream Man. I’m not standing there on the edge of a cliff, and I’m not hanging onto the rocks above the abyss. I’m not picking up plates and setting them down. I’m not picking up plates and setting them down. I’m not picking up plates and setting them down! Scrolling down the row and disconnecting, and thinking,

Why doesn’t she just grab a trident and go out there with a human’s soul, get it over with? If she wants to make it quick, she could even kill Suzy, or...

No. No, no, no. Can’t believe I’m thinking like that. Suzy’s a good person, a good human, she doesn’t deserve anything bad. All Alphys needs to do is go outside and find somebody appropriately... evil. Or something. Or something.

How’s that sound? How would that sound out loud?”

“What?” said Alphys.

“H-How... would that sound out loud?” The Nice Cream Man realized that he wasn’t thinking, he was speaking. “I’m just-- I mean, have you... have you thought about, uh, saying that, to, um...”

She sat down the plates. Her mind stopped like it was submerged in a vat of acid. It didn’t race, it only froze, and Alphys stared at the ground.

“I just mean as... as an idea, Alphys, I-I was just... thinking. I’ve just been thinking. I mean, why DIDN’T you? Why HAVEN’T you? I mean, you’ve gotta have thought about it before, too, going out, and... a-and, jeez, wow, I’m saying a lot... I still haven’t really apologized for, um, two days ago, what I said, and... well, did I? I forget if I did. Alphys?”

He slowly sat down another piece of china on the covered table, equidistant from its neighbors, perfect, perfect, perfect. Nicely sat in a row. The queen’s eyes in front of him were vacant, vacant, because she wasn’t there, because she wasn’t there.

I could.

 

Human soul and a weapon. Get it all over with in five minutes.

They’d only blame me. Everyone else could be free.

“Uh,

 

“Uh-huh. I’ve... th-thought about it,” she said in a trained, automatic tone.

“Alphys, are you okay?”

She was shaking.

She shook her head.

“I didn’t mean to bring it up, so soon. Just... words came out of my mouth, y’know? Alphys, Queen, I’m really... really sorry. I was just thinking.”

Alphys said, “...Do you th-think I should do that?”

“An idea’s all it is. Doesn’t have to be soon, doesn’t have to be right now, or anything. I’m really, I’m really sorry, A--”

“Please, stop saying that.” Her voice cracked under the pressure and she split open. “P-Please shut up and stop talking for a second.”

I could.

 

What should have scared her was being trapped. What should have scared her was the fact that the Core wasn’t producing power or that Suzy seemed more like an insane murderer than she was letting on, but neither of those scared her. She was scared of leaving, and the feeling of freedom that would come with leaving. Even if she could get away with killing six more humans, even if she could be forgiven, she would leave the Underground, and she would leave herself behind.

I’m not there, standing in front of a long table praying that I didn’t have freedom or options.

 

“I’m not. I c-can’t, right? I won’t. D-Don’t bring up something so... s-so horrible, like that. As if it’s that easy. As if it’s just simple, bam, done, a-and we’re free, it’s not like that. They’d kill us up there. They’d kill us. The best o-option we’ve got is waiting for humans to fall down. Anything else a-and we’re screwed on the surface. I would-- I c-could. But the consequences...”

“Sorry,” said the Nice Cream Man again, and then he continued to put plates in rows like nothing was wrong. Then he fell into his mind again and was somewhere else, submerged in red, drowning, drowning, drowning. Then Alphys fell into her mind again and was somewhere else, frowning, putting plate after plate after plate,

silverware,

candles, light them,

ignite,

welcome the guests,

don’t think about it

don’t think about it

don’t think about it

don’t think about it

don’t think about it

(The next one, the next one, the next one. Another shake and she was off her feet. She was running when she fell down and stopped being able to run as the ceiling fell down and melted and collapsed and screamed like a Living Underground, of a hundred faces, of a thousand faces, of a million that she had killed. And her head was ringing. And she saw him again, she saw Sans, and he was splayed underneath a big piece of metal like a big tree trunk that was still pumping orange-hot steel as it sweltered and screeched.

Sticks and stones. Sticks and stones.

Don’t die, Alphys.

She shook and was off her feet and crawled over to him, and the cave exploded again, another shake. She tried to get his hand. He had a grin on his face and then it wasn’t such a grin. She was going to shout something to him over the roar but it wouldn’t have been heard. She held his hand, she held his hand, she held his hand.)

She held his hand. They had been holding hands so long that his was warm, too. He was grinning and looking forward, but mostly looking at her. She did most of the talking.

“So, yeah. Everyone eats, and then everyone plays!” Alphys grinned as a hundred antsy kids shuffled their feet-- or, at least, what passed for feet. “Just sit anywhere you’d like. A-And give a big hand of applause to Mister Vulkin and Mister Vulkin for cooking us lunch!”

The ones old enough to understand clapped, and the ones that weren’t old enough took that as a sign to head over to the table and dig in. From behind the mass of children, Mrs. Snowdrake smiled her little smile, excited yet plaintive as usual. As faces streamed past excitedly, chatting loudly amongst themselves, Sans said to Alphys, “that went pretty well. got them all riled up, at least.”

“Y-Yeah. I guess.”

“so now we just... wait? make sure nobody hurts themselves on the chairs, and the jungle gym, and all that?””

“Right. And k-keep them excited, and not bored, and all that. They’re kids, r-right?” She spun around, and they were already seated, and their voices nearly overshadowed Sans’. “Oh, man.”

“hey, could be worse. could be old monsters.”

Alphys laughed a little, then squinted. “Hey... do you see MK in there?”

Sans scanned the two long tables. “uh, no. he called me, though, told me he might be late. something about suzy, he was kinda hard to hear.”

“O-Oh. Tell him to be safe, okay?”

“yeah, i did, don’t worry. it’s not a big deal, anyway. this thing is for orphans, remember?”

“Well, mostly orphans. E-Everyone’s welcome. I just like having him close. I mean, yesterday he was gone and almost got himself killed, so...”

“right. well, i’ll tell him again-- couldn’t hurt to tell him again, knowing him.”

“Haha, yeah, knowing him.” Alphys let go of Sans’ hand slightly as one of the kids who looked very much like a miniature volcano, Loren, started babbling something resembling a pun before laughing with all of its friends. Sans grinned, turned to her and back, and walked forward, stumbling onto a chair and matching Loren’s pun with an even worse one.

Her head was spinning, still. She was lost in a forest somewhere, but kept her neck from snapping, and stood upright, and wow, she felt so tall. The kids yelled something that they weren’t supposed to, and she was there in just a second to say, “H-Hey, there are some really young Monsters here, could we keep that kinda stuff a little more quiet?”

Her head was still, spinning. Was lost in a forest somewhere and kept it from snapping open and stood up, and right, she was still so tall. They yelled something about the kids that they weren’t supposed to, and Alphys, she was there in only just a second. She says, “Hey, is everything going alright, so far? Yeah? G-Good. I’ve just gotta... I need to duck out and get some air. Just a little light-headed, that’s all. Thank you, Sans. I love you.”

But she meant, I love when you help me out. You’re saving my life, here, keeping me from being too overwhelmed. I mean, if not for you, I wouldn’t have made it this far. Wouldn’t have made it a single day. But I can’t say that I love you, for real, because that means this has to last, and it’s been two years and I haven’t decided if it’s going to last or not. Then,

her neck was spun, spinning and snapped open as Alphys was lost, still lost in the forest somewhere else and somewhere far away. She stood apart from everyone and froze up. The Oni and Charles were enthusiastic. They wanted to get to work on fixing the Core right away. But she said, this is a day to rest. This is a day for rest. We’re doing a thing here, everyone’s happy! Just take a break for the day and relax with everyone. Tomorrow you can start work, but I’m hosting dinner, too, and I think I’d love if you two came to that. She says, “Hey, there’s no big rush. Nothing really to worry about.” Thank you, Sans, I love you.

Loren wasn’t an orphan. Only kid there that wasn’t an orphan. Loren’s parents were Mister Vulkin and Mister Vulkin, neither of which were dead, unlike so many other parents in the Underground. It started among some of the kids as a joke, poking fun. Loren got done eating with everyone else, that well-cooked amazing meal, Alphys thought, but everyone told Loren that Loren should be proud, that Loren should be thankful, Loren doesn’t REALLY belong here, because they’ve got a real house and somebody who makes hot meals all the time. The kids went to play at the jungle gyms and the slides and the merry-go-rounds and the indoors and the infinitely huge room, and all the while a half-lucid Alphys was lost with her head spinning and watching them just,

hey,

“Hey, everyone,” she said. “Loren’s a kid, the same as everyone else. I can’t speak for them personally, but this stuff where you’re making fun of them, it’s... i-it’s really not a good thing to do.”

Cinnamon, a tiny bunny who was grinning cock-eyed, said, “Sorry, Mrs. Alphys. It’s just a joke. Loren gets it.”

“But h-how can it be a joke? I don’t get it. What’s the joke?”

“‘Cus Loren isn’t missing their parents like everyone else. Doesn’t go to the orphanage. It’s just... see, Loren gets it, Loren’s laughing. They’re just luckier than everyone else, I guess. We’re still friends with them, just not the same kinda friends as me and everyone else are friends. Like, the playground and the food isn’t really for Loren, it’s for the orphan kids, like me.”

“Luckier? Don’t say stuff like that. We’re all... that’s not okay to say. We’re all unlucky here, we’ve got to stick together, because that’s how we stay alive. The orphanage isn’t there to be, like, a special place that some people aren’t allowed to go. It’s there s-so that everyone is equal and gets taken care of by somebody.”

“Yeah. But Loren doesn’t NEED to go there with us. So why are they here, ‘sides being friends with us? That’s the joke, it’s just a little joke.”

A cart rolled up by their side. Alphys, who had previously been standing at nearly eye level with Cinnamon, was now stood fully up, her teeth a bit clenched, her tail sliding along the ground, her robe and cape and crown half-tilted as it fell off and fell down and wilted. “Because this is a thing for everyone! Anyone’s allowed, that’s the whole point.”

“Even Suzy? I think it would be cool if Suzy came.”

Alphys paused for a second. “I, uh... y-yeah, I guess, yes. I could get Suzy to come, if everyone’s okay with it. That’s all it is. I’m just trying to make everyone feel okay. Suzy, and Loren, and MK, they’re all kids, the same as everyone else.”

Leaning on his cart, with a modest and warm grin, the Nice Cream Man spoke down toward Cinnamon and Alphys. “Even the human from before? The other kid?”

Surprised, the Queen looked up. “...S-Sorry, didn’t see you there. I’m talking to somebody, right now, could you wait?”

“Well, I’m just being part of the conversation. Nothing wrong with that, right?”

“I... suppose not,” she responded. Cinnamon perked up his ears.

“Honestly, it’s like... I don’t think human kids and Monster kids are the same. I mean, if one of the kids HERE started threatening you, or was all mean and rowdy, you wouldn’t dust them or whatever. You wouldn’t kill ‘em, no matter what. Just makes no sense that you would do that. But for the human kid, it was self defense.”

“H-Humans are much more dangerous,” said Alphys delicately.

“Yeah, but Monsters against Monsters can still be plenty dangerous. But like you’ve always said, we just can’t attack each other. It doesn’t make evolutionary sense. I’m not saying anything mean, Queen, I’m just saying that it’s confusing, is all.” The Nice Cream Man took a short breath, growing nervous. It’s okay to say these things, right? I’m just asking questions. I just honestly want to know. I’ve got the freedom to ask, right?

Alphys’ hands shook, and she used one to adjust her glasses. “Listen. L-Listen. If this is g-gonna be another thing about needing to go out and kill humans, please just don’t even start. T-That’s crazy. We can’t kill people just to get free.”

“We could get free?” asked Cinnamon. Alphys turned to face him.

“Yes, t-technically... but it would require us to use a human soul to g-go outside the Barrier and attack humans in their own homes.”

“Like Frisk?”

She sighed, again, and again and again, and she wasn’t sighing but she was panting. “We aren’t like Frisk. We’re better th-than Frisk. Frisk d-did horrible things, things we’ll never do. Even if it means we have to be underground for longer.”

“Oh,” Cinnamon said, taken aback. “Okay.”

The Nice Cream Man said, “I didn’t mean to bring it up again, Queen. My bad. But if things ever get bad, if we need to, we WOULD do that, right? If it meant saving everyone.”

“I just... I-I...” Alphys coughed loudly and kept up her height. “I haven’t decided. We’ll decide-- we’ll figure it out if and when it comes to that. B-But not right now. Shouldn’t you be serving Nice Cream, b-by now? Why are you here talking to me about stuff that doesn’t matter yet?!”

She realized she had raised her voice, and gradually stopped herself, clutching her hands together and struggling to stop worrying. To her left, suddenly there was Sans, with his hands in his pockets and an honest look. Having not heard any of the words, he said, “everything okay, al?” He glanced at the Nice Cream Man and Cinnamon, who were both at a bit of a loss for words.

“Yeah. Y-Yeah, it was just... about Loren, and stuff. No biggie. Is it time to have Nice Cream yet?” she said, shakily.

“almost. in a few minutes.” He turned to the Nice Cream Man, who resumed his grin immediately. “you ready?” In response, he nodded.

“Good,” Alphys muttered. “I-I’ve gotta get some fresh air.” She started off from the group immediately.

Sans called after her, “again?”

-

Chara was mildly afraid of breaking the space-time continuum. But only mildly. She kept this fact in mind as she responded to MK with, “No, I can’t really describe what it looked like-- but it was the kind of Monster that you just... recognize. Immediately, y’know? Right as you see them.”

“But that’s everyone,” said MK, stepping over a rock as the two scurried through Waterfall, scanning the muddy ground for evidence. “I know everyone. That description doesn’t make any sense. Just tell me what they looked like specifically, Suzy, I swear I’ll know, an’ I’ll TELL you where they are.”

“It’s private. Or...” MK tilted his head as Chara stammered and sighed. “Can you just help me search? No questions asked?”

“I’ll miss the thing in the big room in New New Home.”

“Well, do what you want. No pressure, MK.” Chara turned away, and sped up down the path through Waterfall.

MK sighed. “Okay-- okay, Suzy, alright, I wanna help you. But only if I don’t know the person you’re talking about right as you describe them.”

“Oh, like a game?” She grinned and stopped just as suddenly as she started.

“I mean, yeah, sorta. C’mon. What does the mystery Monster look like?”

A little pause.

Chara was afraid of breaking the space-time continuum. After all, even saying what Flowey looked like could cause a paradox. But... it’d be worth it, right? Just for...

a chance

to see him again

to apologize

to do it right, this time around.

“It’s... it looks like a plant, really.”

MK tilted his head, puzzled. “...Vegetoid?”

“No, no. Why is everyone obsessed with Vegetoids? They’re all dead. I’m talking about-- like, a flower. It looks like a flower with all sorts of vines that come out of the ground.”

Then, another little pause, as the Monster kid with a striped shirt shook with worry and quickly made up a story. Quickly, he figured out that, no, I’m not gonna say anything. “...Wow. Y-You’ve actually got me beat, Suzy. Can’t think of anyone like that, off the top of my head. Maybe if you give me a few minutes, I could--”

“No, no, c’mon. I win the game. Help me look, please-- it seemed like it buried itself in the ground. So I’ve gotta find little potholes. Y’know?”

Of course, Chara knew that MK wouldn’t be looking. He’d be looking in the traditional sense- using his eyes- but he wouldn’t help her at all, because he was already lying about not knowing about Flowey. She had seen the two talk and interact, even if only barely lucid at the time. He would lie out of a promise or a principle, and Chara knew this, and her goal wasn’t to get help, but to extract some sort of answer.

Where would Flowey hide?

What is Flowey like?

Who is Flowey, really?

“Why do you wanna find this person so bad, Suzy?”

She didn’t stop to talk, needed to find that hole in the ground. Kept walking. “Because nobody’s heard of them.”

Who is Flowey, really?

Who is Flowey, really?

“I-I mean, there’s lots of holes in the ground... a WHOLE lot. It’s Waterfall, it’s always like this. Have you even left Waterfall since yesterday? Is Gerson gonna take care of you? I mean, if you wanna, you can come to New New Home, and live there instead... we’ve got open rooms. ‘Sides, honestly, after you tried to stab me, I think m-my ‘sis would wanna have you, y’know... close? For safety? No offense.”

“Eh, you’re right. I’m a human, people have reason to be worried.” It was honest. The last time people didn’t worry, she nearly caused their extinction. Don’t think about it, don’t think about it, don’t think about it. “I don’t know where I’m staying yet, though. Still a lot of Underground to see.”

“Yeah.”

“MK, uh... are you scared of me?”

She had red eyes. He started to stop breathing as he turned. She looked like she had somebody behind her, but it was just Suzy. “Not really. I mean... as much as, y’know, makes sense. After everything. But you’re nice. Just a bad introduction, is all.”

“Hey, good. At least I can make up for a bad introduction, haha...”

The roof was infinitely high and yet it bore down on their foreheads as they continued along, cave entrances and cliffs and muddy waterfalls in every direction. Bright blue on black, fireflies and lily flowers, all blissfully ignored as Chara searched for some sign, some indication that Flowey was there. That he was still there. That Asriel, in one form or another, still remained. But Waterfall was desolate as they come, and it felt like hours passed before either one spoke again.

“You should come to New New Home, really. There’s all my friends you would wanna meet, like Loren an’ Cinnamon. And Cinnamon’s sister, once she gets back from Snowdin.”

“Snowdin? But Monsters can’t go there.”

MK shrugged without shoulders. “I mean, it’s just real cold. Bratty and Catty went to the Ruins to find Toriel’s dust, but we haven’t heard from them, either. I don’t think they put on enough warm clothes, y’know?”

Chara sunk into the mud, standing still. “Oh. I hope they’re okay.”

“Eh, probably not.”

“Are you lying about not knowing that flower Monster? I mean, the way you’re acting... I’ve seen a lot of people lie before, and it just seems like you are, especially the way you looked the second I mentioned somebody looking like a plant. I don’t wanna rag on you or anything, I bet you’ve got good reasons. But I can’t explain how important it is that I find them again.”

He was taken aback, stopping completely in his tracks, silent and frozen. Chara admitted to herself that she was lying, too, but at least she wouldn’t freeze up if discovered.

“Sorry for saying that out of the blue. I’m just tired of looking when you’re obviously keeping something from me. If you wanna stop and go back, that’s okay, too.”

“I’m not lying, yo,” he said weakly.

“Of course you are.”

“Please,” MK pleaded, about nothing in particular. Chara came up close, eye level with MK, not more than a few feet away. Seemed to be towering over him.

“Please what?”

‘Please don’t e-even ask. Don’t make me say anything, please, I-I promised. Please just... I...”

“Hey, hey, it’s alright. I won’t make you do anything, MK. I just need to find him. It’s just... it’s important.”

So far, the universe hadn’t erased her. A good sign.

“I promised.”

“Anything helps. Just a hint- and I won’t involve you at all. And I’ll be careful.”

MK stammered again. “N-No, nothing. I wanna help you, it’s just... I can’t.”

She stepped back and sighed coarsely. “Okay,” she murmured.

“How did... how do you even know about him?”

“I found his little spot in Waterfall. Tried to approach, but he sunk in the ground and went away.”

Coughing, MK said, “A-And why’s that mean you NEED to find him again?”

“Because he’s special. He... he understands some stuff about humans that nobody else does, I can feel it. I used a little, um, magic, and I could tell.”

Digging a hole, further and further. More lies, just lies so that I can see him again. Just to make this right again, perfect again, so things can finally be alright, and I can forget that I used to live here.

“Okay. Okay, i-if it means that much, but I’m not sayin’ anything except... I mean, h-he’s really lonely. Wants to be that way. So if you found his hiding spot, I guess he’s going to find a different one. Somewhere really isolated, I guess, I... I d-dunno.”

Chara held still, thinking and considering. It didn’t take long to imagine someplace where she’d run off to, if she was scared. A place she had always run off to, and the place Asriel would always come to find her.

(He said, “This is the kind of place that doesn’t get a lot of visitors.” It was apologetic, yet he knew Chara would appreciate, in some way, the isolation.)

Without another word she began to run toward a particular exit out of Waterfall. A cave entrance colder than all the others. Surprised by her suddenness and confused, MK waited for a second before following in her wake, calling her name, “Suzy! Yo, where are you going?!”

Blue light.

Blue light.

White light.

White light.

Frozen waterfalls, suspended by ice, cool to the touch, blue lights, white lights. Where Waterfall met Snowdin Forest there were icicles on the cavern ceiling, and out the small entrance all Chara could see was snow, infinite snow, blanketing every surface. But she was not cold; there was nothing but the calm, constant beating of her soul, just enough warmth to stay stable. Partner had given her a soul in its last moments, but now Partner was gone, and with Partner gone there was nothing cold in her, nothing that could pierce her drumming, thumping heart. The blizzard outside was welcoming. I need to get to the Ruins, she thought. I have to get to the Ruins. And when MK turned the corner to see her, she was slipping outside into the great beyond.

White light.

Blue light.

“SUZY!” he yelled. Lost on deaf ears.

There were crates to the side, stacked up and lined up, and MK pulled a board loose with his tail. Clothes inside, multicolored stripes, thick coats and hats he had saved here in case he went out again. He had used them months before, searching for Bratty and Catty and Cinnamon’s sister, all of which had been missing so long, so long, so long. He would scour the frozen landscape with eagle eyes, searching for some figure moving in the white and blue light, but never found a thing, and eventually lost the motivation to go. Now he was struggling to put on two massive all-encompassing coats, insulated boots, a hat that nearly obscured his vision, and a long trailing striped scarf which he slipped on last with the back of his tail. Considering that Snowdin only got colder every day, he was worried it wouldn’t be enough. But Suzy stood even less of a chance. Even a human couldn’t survive the conditions, he thought. Nobody had ever done it before- and it seemed nobody ever could.

Blue light.

White light.

And he was running out after her.

-

More nightmares. Thoughts of dying. Thoughts of everyone dying. Thoughts of a Living Underground like a Monster that could never be erased. Alphys tried to think about something else, turn her mind to any other issue, any other subject, but she was struggling to breathe, sitting outside New New Home with faltering breath and failing, and failing, and can’t breathe, and suffocating,

and she noticed Sans exit and close the door, and started to breathe again, taking in air, pushing out air, like an infant learning for the first time.

He was standing and she was sitting when he said, “hey, we’re wrapping up. gonna make that finishing speech?”

“I gotta... I gotta say no, actually. I w-would, just, y’know... nerves. S-Sorry.”

Sans sat down sloppily on the stone steps next to her, staring at whatever she was looking at. The throne? The tea table? The exit? Probably the throne. “hey, it’s okay. i’ll let ‘em know, no big deal. everything worked out really well, though, i think. everyone’s getting along, the nice cream was great... al, is this more than nerves?”

“A little.”

“wanna talk about it?”

Alphys sighed and lost her breath and caught it again weakly. “I... g-guess.”

His head leaned onto her shoulder softly. She was colder than usual, yet still a flame in a snowstorm, and his only solace. Sans said, “is it about the nice cream man? seemed pretty tense in there.”

“He... ah, h-he was just throwing out ideas, for how we could get out of the Underground. Stuff, y’know, I’ve been thinking about, n-now and then. Taking a soul and leaving and killing humans so we can open the Barrier. A-And I’m just freaking out over it, now. I can’t do it. I couldn’t do it even if it’d help everyone. I feel horrible.”

Sans nuzzled further into her. “i mean, maybe it’s not the worst idea. but we’re not exactly in a rush to act, so there’s no need. something better might come up.”

“I-I mean, is it better, what we’re doing? If kids drop down here, they lose w-whatever their future is, their life above. Seven people are g-gonna die anyway. A-And it’ll all be my fault anyway. So maybe he’s right, maybe it’s the best idea...”

“no, no. don’t generalize like that. you’re doing the right thing, waiting. it’s not like it’s that bad down here, al... i mean, we just finished new new home, it can’t be that bad.”

Alphys nodded, slowly, weak. “Jesus, why do I even need to have a speech at the end? They’re kids, they don’t even hear it.”

“you’re kidding, right?” Sans grinned and closed his eyes, calm. “kids are the ones who hear it the most. they all trust you. they all follow you.”

“I guess.”

“c’mon, i believe in you, al. i’ll back you up on anything, i swear.”

 

“Anything?”

 

“yeah.”

 

Alphys said, “The Underground is the safest p-place we’ll ever be. The safest place any of you will be.” The room was awash with faces, so scrawny and young, stirred up into the mixing pot where they were all one at once, all one, all one. Beating hearts and beating souls like a bunch of floating spirits that she could see, stars in the moons, and nightmares, and she kept having nightmares while she was awake about Sans gone and them gone and them gone and them gone. “If we don’t leave in your lifetime, we w-will need to accept it. We will need to b-be thankful that we're here at all. We’re not s-sure we’ll ever get there, so don’t even hope. Don’t even hope f-for a second, because every single method w-we could use to get out of the Underground hurts somebody else who doesn’t deserve it. Asgore told everyone, t-told us all there’d be a way, that we should keep hope, but don’t. Don’t! Keep it f-for things that really matter. Friends, family-- c-care about those things, hope for those things. Hope we’re a-all okay tomorrow. Hope that we’re not all d-dead tomorrow. Hope that not a single damn human falls down here from now on.

“Because Suzy is a lucky break. W-We're all young, a-and I’m young too, but we’ve gotta look at the past. We gotta know that every other kid besides the First Human and Suzy lashed out and attacked Monsters. Even the s-safest Underground, even the best I can do isn’t good enough. The best I can do isn’t good enough, okay? Next human that falls down here might just kill somebody. A-And even if that means, another soul to open the Barrier, it’s not something to hope for. It can’t be. It won’t be.

“I, uh...

“I...

“I hope

you enjoyed

dinner.

Please g-give

a big hand of applause

to Mister Vulkin and Mister Vulkin.”

The Nice Cream Man had a lot of things to say, clenched his hands, didn’t get a chance to say them. Alphys backed up cross-eyed as Sans stammered for a response, she left through the door to the big room and sidled like a two dimensional image on a canvas and started crying because, after all, she was a weak queen not willing to sacrifice a few lives to save an entire species, and a weak queen enough to say that what she was doing was right, and lie so well she almost convinced herself.

Sidled out of the way to the front entrance of New New Home in silence and slipped up the stairs and up the stairs and up the hallway and into the overlook room where she locked the door and felt her spirit leap out the window into its dead kingdom, or queendom, or whatever it was.

Or whatever it was.

The Nice Cream Man had no idea what to say.

So Burgerpants showed up, and so did Gerson asking about Suzy, and Sans was frozen trying to clean up the mess, and they all talked, and they all said, “Alphys stormed off. Seemed upset.”

“I’m sorry,” said the Nice Cream Man. “I’m the reason. I said something really dumb... mean.”

He was stacking up the plates, nodding to Loren as Loren left, and Cinnamon, and Gerson and Burgerpants, and having a waking nightmare, and a standing nightmare, and his fur was like frost as it killed him, as it killed him and killed him into the ground.

Then him and Sans were the only ones left. Hadn’t said anything to each other.

“Well, that ended suddenly,” he said.

“eh. it went on for way longer than it should have, anyway. really good for most of the time, ‘cept the end.”

“...Except the end?”

“i’m gonna go talk to al, if you can finish up here.”

The Nice Cream Man raised up a hand. “What was wrong with the end? She was just... saying what she felt was right. I agree with most of it, anyway, y’know, just didn’t get a chance to respond. Then everyone scattered. I mean, they were gonna scatter sooner or later.”

Sans held his grin in. “yeah. just seemed like... it’s just something i wanna talk to her about, is all. and don’t be sorry, you were just putting an idea out there.”

“Just an idea. Kinda dumb, thinking about it... really dumb.” He stacked plates.

Sarcastically, Sans responded, “at least she took it well.”

“No, no... she didn’t,” said the Nice Cream Man. “Froze up. Broke a little. And why aren’t you defending her? I thought that was what you would be doing, right about now. Would’ve stepped up in front of everyone and clarified and gone to run after her.” He stacked plates.

“i am defending her. just don’t gotta get all yell-y about it. people get what she was saying, she’s just upset about having to say it.”

“And you’ve asked her?”

He stacked plates.

“not yet. had to finish up here.”

He stacked plates.

“You should go. I’ve got things covered, Sans. And she really isn’t okay, not like you’re saying she is. I... really messed things up. Said the wrong things, I know, I don’t need anyone telling me I did or didn’t. And I would go and apologize, but I have already, and... Jesus, it’s hard. Must be really hard leading all these people, y’know, and... an’ morons like me.”

“you’re not a moron.” Sans spoke with a lower tone, weaker.

“You should go, Sans.”

He stacked plates.

He knocked on the door.

Didn’t respond.

“al, i’m sorry, didn’t back you up like i said i would, you pretty much said everything, haha... can you let me in? it’s alright, nobody behind me or anythin’.”

“Can... c-can I just spend the night alone? Need to be... a-alone.”

He knocked. “yeah, but... al, it’s okay. things are okay. you don’t gotta kill anyone.”

“But I should, a-and that’s probably the best thing to do. And I’m not gonna. Which is why I’m... t-the worst queen there’ll ever be. ‘Cus I’ve got a shot at it and I’m sitting here when I could be out there s-saving the Underground.”

He knocked. “forget it. forget the whole idea.”

“I’d wanna kill Suzy first, say that she died falling... th-that’s one less person they’ll hold me accountable for, on the surface. S-So we’ve got better odds. Higher chances of being accepted.”

He knocked. “al, please... p-please let me in.”

“Not gonna... not g-gonna... not gonna, not gonna, not gonna, not gonna...”

He knocked.

He knocked.

He stacked plates. “al, please, this is dumb, nobody wants you to go out there, everyone knows, everyone gets it. you’re gonna be okay. what about the dinner tomorrow? you’ve gotta be good for the dinner tomorrow, y’know... no speeches, no yelling, no need to say anything about hope, or...”

He knocked.

“alphys, please let me in, i’m freezing, it’s so cold out here.”

“I j-just need tonight to be alone. For a second.”

“al, i love you. it’s dumb and i don’t like saying it, so don’t make me say it again, ‘cus it’s really, really dumb sounding... i just wanna come in and hold you and that’s all it is. forget about everything outside the window and just sit for a while. don’t care if you just want to sleep, that’s what i’m best at. forget it. forget everything.”

She said, “I love you, too,” but she didn’t open the door.

He knocked.

He knocked.

He knocked, then he went to his room, where there was a heater, and he held it until his hands burned.

-

Bad feeling-- broken leg, maybe. Hurts. Hurts bad, didn’t fall on flowers. Only the lights of the tunnel above to guide you, to guide me, to guide Frisk.

Lost track of time. Maybe stayed frozen for-- decades? Millenia? Broken in half and split open, leg, specifically, broken leg snapped open and spilling a streak of red on red flowers. Leaving a long trail, is this the Ruins again? I meant to come here, I did it right. No voice, no coughing hacking feeling but coughs. Lost track of time, broken and frozen and dead. Hoping-- hoping it’s almost midnight so that the clock ticks and I’m not here, and this isn’t happening, like always. Can I reset? Can I go back? No, already tried that. Caused an earthquake. Pathetic mess of a human being. Dead soul. Empty soul. First person I get to will kill me, crucify me. First Monster I get to will kill me, crucify me. Broken leg maybe, hurts bad, so bad.

First monster Frisk saw again was Flowey, looked strange, looked so forlorn, staring at a wall. Was trying to find another place to hide, new hiding spot. The most isolated place in the Underground. Frozen, dead Frisk limped, they looked at each other for a while. Flowey wrote in the ground, (You again?) Nonchalant and terrified. Not far away was dust; must be Toriel again.

Again, and again, and again. Reset, and breathe.

Earthquake and another breath.

Earthquake and breathing again.

(Do you know? Do you know, from the surface, all the things we’ve both been doing all this time? I bet you don’t regret it.)

Frisk thin, mutilated, thin like bones.

(Go into Snowdin and just... freeze to death, please. Might not be able to tell myself to do it, but you ought to have the motivation. At least you can feel. At least you can regret. If you regret any of it you should just go out there and freeze to death, Frisk)

No idea what you’re talking about-- dead. So much pain, broken leg, maybe? Calf like a pool cue, snapped in half.

Then it was the entrance of the Ruins with Flowey behind Frisk, silent the both of them, trailing red on red flowers.

Then it was Chara who appeared in the doorway and stared at Frisk.

Then it was MK, with a long scarf that went into the darkness.

Then, their mouths hung open, they were all quiet, and all they could hear was the wind outside, whirring like a turbine and turning the room into ice.

 

Blue light.

 

White light.

 

Blue light.

 

White light.

 

Red light. The Core turned on.

 

Red light. The Core started producing power.

 

Red light. The Core sounded its alarm.


	4. fek

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> fek

hey, posting this on an impulse. i don’t think i’m going to be continuing weak queen, first of all, not because it’s impossible but because it’s so much work for basically no payoff. i haven’t taken a break from writing since the 11th of december making you guys stuff. anyone reading-- thank you, you’ve been fucking /awesome/ and i hope you enjoyed it, it just turns out that it gets harder and harder to force myself to write 10k words every few weeks, especially when every other writer on /utg/ and ao3 is not only writing faster, but also getting better response and more readers. i might still write a chapter 9 for just another ending at some point because i’ve been rattling around ideas in my head for a while. chapters 4-8 of weak queen were going to be pretty great but getting the energy is still hard, so... yeah.

and hey i won’t post spoilers yet, just in case the energy comes back. here's hoping!

essentially i started weak queen because writing just another ending was fun. but writing weak queen is not very much fun. it won't have a really good chapter like The Kills of Chara or Room 336, and i can't jump around and do all i really want to. the ending was going to be okay, but not great. so just don't worry too much about it and recommend the other fic to people if you think it's up their alley. thanks for reading, sorry for ending it prematurely, have a nice day!


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